


The Cyborg and His Mechanic

by rinthegreat



Series: Cyberpunk Universe [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Artist! Haru, Cyborg! Sousuke, Cyborgs, Diner Owner! Makoto, Futuristic Future Fish, Getting Together, M/M, Mechanic! Rin, Metropolis, Politics, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-09 03:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3235238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinthegreat/pseuds/rinthegreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sousuke meets Rin for the first time after being attacked by a gang because of what he is.  After being fixed up by the young, shockingly talented mechanic, he doesn't think he'll ever see him again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First

**Author's Note:**

> Aka: the Cyborg AU no one asked for. Relatively plot heavy, but I am focusing on SouRin, yes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time he meets Rin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going through and editing as I read to remind myself what had happened before I finish the final chapter. The changes are mostly cosmetic and very minor. I hope you enjoy.

The first time he meets Rin is an accident. He had reported to solve a disturbance in an old apartment complex and upon completing his job had been cornered by hooded teenagers wielding bats. Luckily for him, they aimed for his robotic arm and leg instead of his eye or any of his organic parts. It still hurt, regardless of all that, and after a few minutes of being beaten down he’d passed out.

He wakes up to find a light shining in his face. Confused, he turns his head to the side to see tables with tools scattered all over them. He pushes himself up, surprised to find that he’s not tied down, though he had been stripped down to his undershorts. Those kids aren’t the ones behind this new location then. Interesting.

His robotic eye zooms in and out of objects, identifying the tools and other objects on the table until his microchip concludes that he is in a mechanic shop. But it isn’t a shop he’s familiar with; the tools are all older, though they appear to be cleaned often. This places him on the poorer side of the city. And, since the kids aren’t behind this, then that means he’d been hauled off to scrappers; people looking to take parts from robots and cyborgs.

“Hey there, looks like you’re awake.”

At the sound of the voice, he immediately jerks up and off the table, falling to the ground. He should’ve evaluated his own well-being sooner; what he didn’t notice is that he’s missing his robotic leg. Panic, an emotion he’s never felt before, overwhelms him. He scrambles on the floor, shoving himself away from the voice.

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down.” The person who the voice belongs to kneels down to his eye level with their hands raised. They’re still holding a tool in their hand though, so he doesn’t stop his escape. Finally, the tool is dropped and pushed away, as if the person had realized his fear. “Sorry. Just…stop moving. You don’t have your arm or leg attached.”

He hadn’t even noticed his arm’s missing too. “I’m Rin,” the person says, and he finally looks up and evaluates the person. A human male, at least as far as he can tell. His hair is a deeper red than he’s ever seen occur naturally before, but it must be natural because the man’s eyebrows match. He has it slicked back under a dirty bandana, supposedly to keep it out of his face while working. He determines that this ‘Rin’ must be the mechanic in charge of the shop based on the smudges of dirt across his face, the gloves on his hands, and the tool he had tossed aside earlier.

“SY914185,” he responds finally. He’s made no move to approach the mechanic, but he’s no longer backing away either. Rin seems to take this as consent, because he scoots closer.

“Nice to meet you SY914185. I’m gonna put you back on the table, alright? I need to reattach your arm and leg.”

He contemplates it a moment before nodding and lifting his arm. The human stands and leans over, lifting him without much trouble. He knows he’s not light, so that must mean Rin’s just strong. He wonders if Rin’s the one who carried him here. He doesn’t doubt it.

“You were pretty banged up when I found you,” Rin confirms as he sets him down on the table. The mechanic walks over to a separate table and picks up a robotic leg Sousuke recognizes as his own. “I carried you back here. Hope you don’t mind. I know it’s protocol to take you to the shop your parts were made, but I couldn’t read the serial numbers on either your arm or your leg. I had to recreate your arm and your leg, actually.”

He frowns, his eye zooming in on the leg where the serial number would be. It’s blank. Upon closer observation he notices a few differences between the leg Rin’s holding and his former one. “You made that?” he asks finally.

“Yeah. I used a few of the original pieces, but like I said, it was pretty trashed. I tested it out to make sure it works though, no worries.”

“Where is this?” he finally asks, deeming that information necessary at this point.

“Ah…we’re in Iwatobi,” Rin replies hesitantly.

He checks his database for cyborg mechanics in the area and finds it blank. “You are not a registered cyborg mechanic.”

Rin fiddles with the leg in his hand. “Well, no. I’m just a regular mechanic. I specialize in labor robots mostly, but that’s just what we get around here. You’re the first cyborg I’ve worked on.”

He sits up again. “I must insist you return me to my mechanic in the Sano district, designation BD8536 –“

“Whoa, whoa.” Rin’s there again, pushing him back on the table. “You don’t have an arm or a leg, remember? You can’t exactly go wandering around right now. Especially not out there.”

The way Rin says that triggers some kind of curiosity in his mind. “What is out there?”

Rin raises an eyebrow. “We’re in the Iwatobi district. It’s not exactly _cyborg friendly_.” When he doesn’t respond, Rin sighs. “Look, SY14 –“

“SY914185,” he corrects.

“Yeah, that. Do you have a different name I can call you by?”

He thinks, finally recalling the name his creator sometimes calls him. “Sousuke.”

Rin smiles. “Alright, Sousuke then. If you don’t already have it loaded in the robotic part of your brain, then let me explain it. Iwatobi district is headquarters of the Samezuka Movement. You know, the anti-cyborg people? So if they see a cyborg wandering around the area they’ll dispose of you _even_ if you’re missing an arm and a leg and can’t fight back. We don’t have any certified cyborg mechanics in the area anymore because of them. All the certified ones who used to live here were either pushed out or…you know…killed.”

Rin’s logic is sound, Sousuke has to hand it to him. But protocol still stands, and he is still required to go to his own mechanic. “You know,” Rin remarks, interrupting his thoughts. “You could just let me put you back together and then go see your mechanic afterwards.” He grins at Sousuke. “Though it would be a shame to put these awesome new parts to waste,” he adds as an afterthought. He has a lilt in his tone, one that Sousuke’s computer identifies as a signifier than Rin just told a joke.

“Very well,” he agrees, lying still so the other can work on him.

Rin’s teeth are sharp and pointy unlike most other humans, something Sousuke notices before the mechanic dons his plastic face shield and picks up his tools. Cyborgs can feel pain, having similar nerve endings to the ones present in humans, but their computer dulls it, giving them a higher pain tolerance. Rin’s careful as he works on Sousuke, but despite that there are certain connection points which still hurt no matter what.

The other’s hands are steady as they work, moving quickly to pick up pieces, holding the arm still in place as he reconnects it. Nothing is crooked, and he can tell just by feel that all the parts are being placed in properly. His eye zooms in on the tool in the mechanic’s hand, identifying it. It’s an older model of a common tool used on robots. Rin had mentioned that his specialty is labor robots, so that made logical sense. But the connectors are different for cyborgs than robots, and so are the tools. The fact that this mechanic was able to design something with his robotic tools which fit Sousuke’s cyborg parts perfectly is impressive.

He files through his internal computer as Rin moves onto his leg. He searches the terms ‘Rin’ and ‘mechanic’, but doesn’t come across much. His official license is listed, giving Sousuke access to his full name: Rin Matsuoka.

Using that, Sousuke’s able to find other legal documents on the mechanic. Rin was born on the 2nd of February, and he was 18 years old at the time he received his official mechanic license. That was six years ago, making the mechanic 24 years old.

Additionally, there are records of him attending the police academy two districts over, but no records of him graduating. He finds his name along with those of Rin’s mother and sister in an old obituary for his father, Toraichi Matsuoka, deceased nine years earlier, also a mechanic. Since there is no record of Rin having attended any trade school, it’s most likely he learned from his father.

Aside from that, he finds nothing. For someone so talented, Rin’s managed to keep a low profile. It’s normal for a mechanic of his caliber to have at least one or two serial numbered robots under their belt after being in the industry so long, but he doesn’t seem to have any.

“Alright, I need you to stand up and put your weight on your leg so I can adjust the ball joint there,” Rin’s voice cuts through his thoughts, and Sousuke realizes that his leg hasn’t been touched for a few minutes. When he looks over at the other, the mechanic has his shield pushed up atop his head. His face is sweaty, and he smears grease on his nose when he wipes the liquid off with his glove.

Sousuke’s heart palpitates, and he makes a mental note to have his actual mechanic check all the connections when he gets back to the Sano district. For now, though, he does as Rin says and stands up, staying perfectly still in front of the other.

The mechanic pulls down his face shield again, not noticing the smear of grease on his nose and kneels down in front of Sousuke, perfecting his work. The whirr of the tool fills the room again, and Sousuke studies the crown of Rin’s head while the other works. Rin doesn’t take long to do the touch ups, and soon enough, the mechanic is standing in front of him, stretching out his neck.

How long have they been at this now? Two hours? Three? His computer calculates the time from when he woke up till now as Rin circles around his robotic leg to the back. Three hours since the time he woke up. Again, it’s impressive. Whenever he needs maintenance done on his arm or leg, it always takes his mechanic at least three hours per limb. And here Rin is, doing it in half the time. Of course, Sousuke had those heart palpitations earlier, so there’s a chance Rin had messed up in his haste.

Rin picks up a large hunk of metal from one of his benches. It appears to be scrap, but Rin holds it out to Sousuke, who automatically reaches with his organic arm. “No. Other hand. I need you to hold this so I can do the same thing I did to your leg.” Sousuke switches arms, and Rin hands him the scrap metal. It’s heavier than the cyborg expected, and he’s once again awestruck by the strength of the mechanic. “Hold it down at your side so it stretches the cables.”

Sousuke does as he’s asked once more, dropping his arm to his side as his hand clutches the heavy weight. Rin picks up his tools and works on the cables and screws connecting his arm to his shoulder.

Sousuke knows it’s unusual to have a full arm connection like he does. Most cyborgs he’s encountered have arms connected at the elbow or just below the shoulder. His connects all the way at the top of his shoulder, the metal touching his collarbone. This strange connection is what causes most problems for him and his mechanic.

The benefit is that he has a larger range of motion than most cyborgs, but the downfall is that the cables stretch too far, often getting torn out. It breaks the connection to the muscles underneath, which are harder to repair than the robotic elements. The worst time had caused him to go into shock.

Rin is careful as he works, displaying his skills as he holds the cables in place with one hand while securing them with the other. The connection feels strong like this, stronger than his older arm, and when Rin finishes with the touchups twenty minutes later, Sousuke’s surprised to find that holding the scrap metal is no longer putting a strain on him at all. Rin had focused on the cable connections closest to his collarbone and the hinges of his elbow. For never having worked on a cyborg before, he has good intuition.

The mechanic walks off, putting his tools away and taking his shield off, abandoning it on the table. Sousuke takes that to mean that he no longer needs to hold the metal and places it back on the workbench. He doesn’t let his guard all the way down and continues to watch Rin make his way around the shop.

Rin grabs a rag before returning, using it to wipe off his face. It doesn’t appear any cleaner than the rest of the shop, but somehow it manages to remove the grease from his nose. Sousuke registers a faint echo of disappointment at this, but shakes it away with a frown. Emotions are for humans. He’s a cyborg; a combination of human-like organic material and robotic parts. Cyborgs are the bridge between robots and androids; almost as intelligent as true humans but programmed like a robot.

Besides, there’s no reason to feel anything at the sight of grease disappearing from across the bridge of a human nose.

“How do you feel?” Rin asks, wrapping the rag around the back of his neck. Sousuke rolls his arm around and takes a few steps around the work area.

“Acceptable,” he decides. There’s nothing obviously wrong, but the real test will be if the limbs are still as strong in a week. So for now it is simply acceptable.

Rin chuckles, exposing his sharp teeth once again. Sousuke isn’t sure what’s so funny, but decides not to ask. “Well I suppose that’s as good of an answer as I was going to get,” the mechanic states. “I have a cot in the back, so you can stay the night. I know some people; we can smuggle you out in the morning.”

“No,” Sousuke responds immediately. “I will leave now. Where are my clothes?” He has been in his undergarments the entire time, after all. Embarrassment isn’t an emotion that cyborgs feel, but cold is. Additionally, he will need his uniform in order to return to Sano.

“Are you sure?” Rin asks, raising his eyebrows. “It’s after sunset, and the gangs are out. It’s not safe.”

“Please return my clothes,” Sousuke insists.

Rin doesn’t argue a second time. He disappears before coming back with folded cloth in his arms. “Thank you,” Sousuke remarks as he takes the pile from the mechanic’s hands. It’s only polite to do so.

“Your shirt is torn up,” Rin informs him just as Sousuke unfolds it and discovers the mess himself. He’ll need a new uniform, but for now it’ll have to do. He tugs on his pants, making sure that his leg is covered, then pulls the shirt over his head. Rin walks away, pulling open a drawer. He tosses some cloth at Sousuke as he comes back, which the cyborg catches automatically. “At least wear this. It’ll cover your arm. And if you put up the hood it’ll make your eye harder to notice too.”

The cyborg holds out the item in question and discovers a large jacket; too wide to fit Rin. It doesn’t matter who it belonged to though; Sousuke will send it back. “Thank you,” he repeats as he pulls it on. It’s clear it hasn’t been worn in a while, but there’s a faint scent of oil coming from the fibers.

“Yeah, well…it was fun working on you. Never had a chance before.” Rin scratches the back of his head, looking away, and Sousuke’s heart skips a beat again. It’s imperative he sees his mechanic as soon as possible. “Let me know if you run into any problems.”

He’s unlikely to return to this small mechanic shop specializing in labor robots in the middle of the Iwatobi district even if he does have problems, but his programming and his organic side both tell him it’s rude to respond with that. Instead he replies: “I will. Thank you. I will return this jacket along with your payment once I return.”

“Oh you don’t have to…” Rin protests. Sousuke ignores him though, already headed to the door. His internal chip is already calculating the quickest route back to Sano from here. The cyborg raises his robotic arm in a wave before pushing to door open and leaving.

When he does finally make it back to his district, he heads straight to his mechanic’s shop. He’s looked over, his new parts examined thoroughly before the other determines that his limbs are flawless.

The microchip in his head is undamaged as well, and he is diagnosed with nothing but minor bruising from the beating. It looks like the teenagers had focused the brunt of their attack on his old limbs. Declared healthy and undamaged, he’s released. He finds the address of Rin’s shop in the directory and sends the jacket along with a generous payment back to the mechanic.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever see him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out [this beautiful fanart by tewateronaikawa on tumblr](https://tewateroniakwa.tumblr.com/post/117132897842/april-drawing-challenge-day-22-sci-fi-i-dont-do)
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/rinthegreat_ao3) to see what I'm writing and how to support me!


	2. The Five Year Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Five Year Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: this has been edited. Again, the changes are mostly cosmetic (eliminating tabs). I hope you all enjoy them!

The second time he meets Rin is over a year later. The Samezuka Movement has legitimized, turning into a full blown political party. Several of their members had become leaders in some of the lower branches of the government, and the newest head of the Movement is running for Mayor in the next election. Politics usually mean next to nothing to Sousuke, being petty squabbles between humans and about humans, but this time cyborg survival is at risk.

The debate gets so prevalent, that even the cyborgs working for police stations are affected. The Sano station slowly cuts back on their cyborg workforce until even Sousuke is let go. For some time he’s almost unaffected, aside from not going to work. He lives off his severance, but soon that’s taken away from all the cyborgs as well. And once that stops coming, he has to leave the Sano district. He packs up one bag with his things and leaves everything else to be collected by the landlord.

He has enough money saved to afford a month of rent in an apartment in one of the cheaper districts, so he goes out to find a place to live and a job. He doesn’t have much luck. Cyborgs are just as expensive to hire as humans, if not more so, and many bosses would rather hire humans than cyborgs these days. He goes around place to place, carrying his backpack as he looks, getting turned away everywhere he goes without even getting inside the door.

That’s how he runs into Rin: broke, carrying his belongings on his back, and looking for work in the Iwatobi district. Now that the anti-cyborg movement has been legitimized, it’s no more dangerous than almost any other district, or so he assumes. He’s wearing his own jacket to cover his arm this time. His hand is shoved in his pocket, and he’s sporting sunglasses to hide his eye. He’s thinking about the owner of the jacket he wore a year ago when he runs into the object of his thoughts. Quite literally.

The mechanic rounds the corner, smacking into Sousuke and stumbling back. The bags he’s carrying swings wildly in his hands, and Rin looks surprised to have hit something so solid.

“Whoa, sorry wasn’t looking where I –“ the mechanic cuts himself off as he looks up. “Sousuke?”

Sousuke had, of course, immediately recognized him. He’s convinced it’s due to his red hair; it’s a violent shade he couldn’t mistake for anyone else’s. “Rin,” he responds calmly, staring down at the mechanic. He hasn’t changed at all in the one year since Sousuke woke up in his shop with his limbs having been beating beyond recognition.

“You remembered me,” Rin says, clearly surprised. Sousuke doesn’t even need the help of his computer to identify that tone of voice.

“You made my limbs,” he counters in the same calm tone of voice as before.

Rin breaks into a broad smile at that. “Yeah, I did. How are they working out for you?”

Sousuke had lost access to his mechanic the day he was let go from the police station and hadn’t been maintenanced since then. There’s nothing wrong with the limbs Rin made for him, as they hadn’t had any problems this entire time. But he hasn’t had any luck searching for jobs today either, and a break would be nice. “If you would like to examine them, you can.”

“Can I? Cool. I’m headed back to my shop anyway.” Rin’s still wearing that wide grin from before, even while he speaks. Sousuke’s gaze automatically focuses in on Rin’s sharp teeth, admiring their shape and color as he talks. He forcibly rips his eyes away, looking at the brick next to them instead, but Rin either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care because he turns and walks off, clearly expecting him to follow.

Sousuke does, looking around at the streets and examining them with his eye as Rin leads him back to his shop. Iwatobi is the poorest district in the city, and it’s obvious even on the main street. The police have done their job cleaning up the homeless in this district just like the others, so there aren’t any out in the open, but there’s plenty of trash.

Stains mark the concrete beneath their feet, and there are large chunks of concrete missing from the sidewalks. The traffic is lighter here than the rest of the city; hovercrafts still zoom by, billowing smoke in their wake, but they’re more concentrated higher up on the highway. No one stops here. He sees no taxis on these streets, and the bus stops are graffitied almost beyond recognition.

It’s no wonder a place like this is where the Samezuka Movement was born. Most of these citizens were handymen and construction workers before robots became cheap enough to be mass produced by the companies and used as disposable labor.

Cyborgs are too expensive to take labor jobs, so instead they became replacements for the more dangerous jobs such as policemen or astronauts. It had all been framed as wanting to protect real humans from getting injured, but that message hadn’t been received so easily.

“What are you doing around here?” Rin asks, drawing Sousuke from his contemplation. He knows no one can see his display but him, but Sousuke closes down all the tabs he has open so he can give Rin his full attention.

“I am looking for work,” he admits in the same emotionless tone as he normally uses. Not being human, he doesn’t feel embarrassed for admitting that he’s out of a job. Besides, Rin might know of some work in the area and even a place to live that he’d be able to afford.

Rin looks over his shoulder at Sousuke, surprise once again evident on his face. “I thought you were a cop,” he frowns. It’s amazing, the cyborg notes absently, that Rin can look at him and still manage to walk forward without tripping on the gaps in the sidewalk. “I mean, you had the uniform on last time we met.”

“I was let go in response to the upcoming election.”

Rin turns his face forward again, but Sousuke is still able to hear the huff of air come from his mouth. “You find anything here?” he asks, turning to lead them down a side alley. Somehow Sousuke thinks the mechanic might say something else, but Rin doesn’t expand on his question.

“No.”

Rin stops in front of a familiar door and pushes up the dirtied cover on the keypad next to it. Buildings in the Sano district are outfitted with the newest technology for their door locks, but here they still punch in a passcode.

Rin unlocks the door and pushes it open, leading them both in. The lights flicker on as they walk into the shop, and the door closes automatically behind them. The mechanic sets down his bags on the back workbench as Sousuke looks around at the shop.

Nothing seems to have changed in the year since he was last here. There are tools on the wall and scattered on the benches, seeming disorganized and cluttered. Sousuke identifies a few automatically, but he doesn’t need to read the tabs to know these are the same tools Rin had used to update his limbs.

There are four benches filling the shop, dusty and dirty and looking as if none of them had been cleaned in a year. The bench he’d laid on is mostly clean, while the one next to it is a mess of tools, rags, and spare parts. The shop isn’t a complete disaster, but it’s a stark contrast to the squeaky clean workstation his old mechanic had with its white walls and organized tool trays.

“Here, catch.” Before Sousuke can register what Rin’s talking about, the mechanic tosses a wrench at him from across the room. Automatically, the cyborg reaches out and catches the tool. “Can you use that?” Rin asks him.

“Yes.” Even though he’s not a robot used for simple labor, he still knows how to use the equipment relevant for jobs such as plumbing.

“Consider yourself hired then.”

“What?” This time it’s Sousuke’s turn to be surprised.

“I need an assistant, and you need a job. I have an extra room upstairs that you can stay in too if you need a place to live. Unless you already have something?”

He isn’t going to find anything better, and Sousuke knows that. He’s not sure why he came to the Iwatobi district in the first place. There are plenty of districts cheaper than Sano, so he wouldn’t need to be _here_ specifically.

Yet here he is, standing in a shop he remembers better than he should, talking to a mechanic whose voice hasn’t left his thoughts for twelve months. There won’t be any other jobs out there for him in this district, and as the Samezuka Movement continues to gain support there won’t be any in the other districts either.

“I would be willing to be your assistant.”

Rin laughs at that, and Sousuke finds himself relaxing for a reason he can’t identify. “Glad to hear it. Come on, I live upstairs,” he beckons before walking away.

Sousuke follows Rin to stairs hidden behind a curtain. They ascend them, stopping at a door which is locked with another keypad. “2215,” Rin tells him, typing the code into the keypad as he speaks. “Figure you should know the code. It’s the same as the one out front.”

The apartment is small but far less cluttered than downstairs. Rin takes off his boots as he enters, and Sousuke mimics him to be polite. The main room has just enough space for a couch pushed against one wall, a short table with four worn cushions in the middle, and a cramped kitchen area. The floor is wood, but it’s stained and warped as if it hasn’t been changed since the building was first built. There’s no hallway, but behind the chairs is an extra square of floor space, closed on three sides.

“The door on the left is my room. You can take the one to the right. The back one’s the bathroom,” Rin tells him, walking back to show him. Sousuke follows, and the mechanic opens the bathroom first. It’s small. There’s a toilet, tub with a shower head and curtain, and a small sink that all look like they’ve been squished in there. They can’t both stand inside, so Sousuke hovers behind Rin as he looks.

Rin shows him into the room on the right; the one that will be Sousuke’s. There’s a small bed, more of a cot, pushed against the wall under the window. Against the wall closest to the bathroom is a dresser which looks like it had been cleaned and emptied recently. There’s a worn rug on the floor next to the bed, covering up part of the warped wood which extends into this room too. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing, and Sousuke is out of options anyway. It’s either this or find an abandoned building to sleep in for the night.

“You can drop your stuff off in there and settle in,” Rin tells him, sliding out of the way. “I’ll come get you when it’s time for dinner.”

“Thank you.”

Rin gives him a crooked sort of smile, his eyes downcast like he’s embarrassed for some reason as he heads back toward the door with his shoes. Sousuke watches him as he walks away and bends to put his boots back on. “Oh and one more thing,” the mechanic says, standing back up once his shoes are laced. “My room is off limits.”

“Understood.”

The mechanic grants him a real smile this time before heading back down to his shop.

Sousuke spends the next few minutes unpacking his belongings and organizing them. He doesn’t have many; he barely fills two of the four drawers in the dresser. He finds bedding and a towel under the cot and makes his bed, then looks out the window of the building. They’re only on the second floor, so he can’t see out across the city the way he could before. Instead, his view is that of the small alley between them and the brick of the next building, but he doesn’t mind; the view has never mattered to him anyway.

Rin comes back upstairs while he’s in the shower. The doors aren’t soundproof, and he has better hearing due to his chip, so he can hear the moment the mechanic stomps in and takes off his boots.

Sousuke changes and comes out, his hair still damp to find Rin standing in his socks next to the couch, staring out the window there. He looks deep in thought, his sharp teeth chewing on his lower lip, and Sousuke just stares for a moment. Again, his heart flutters uncomfortably in his chest while looking at Rin. His mechanic had said nothing had been ruined in his chip, but this hadn’t happened before he’d been equipped with his new limbs.

Finally Rin turns around, his lip released but still swollen. “Oh hey, I was waiting for you. We’re going out to dinner tonight. You ready?”

Sousuke simply nods, and the two of them head out. Rin leads him down side alleys, talking to him the whole way about what he expects Sousuke to do as his assistant. Sousuke nods and takes mental notes so he can be more prepared for when his new job starts the next day. It all seems very straight forward; Rin doesn’t expect him to work on any robots himself. Most of Sousuke’s tasks involve keeping the shop clean and assisting Rin when instructed.

Rin stops suddenly in front of a run-down diner, and Sousuke nearly slams into him from where he’d been walking slightly behind. “Here,” Rin says, opening the door for them both.

It’s apparent almost immediately that Rin’s a frequent patron from the greetings they get walking in. Sousuke looks around, observing old fashioned televisions attached to the walls in various places, all playing different channels. Rin marches them to a booth without waiting to be seated and slides in. Sousuke takes the other seat, facing the nearest television showing coverage of the upcoming election.

“This ok?” Rin asks, and Sousuke tears his gaze away from the anchor listing results of the most recent popularity poll to look at the mechanic.

“I have no preference.”

“Great. Because they have the best burgers here.” Rin’s attention gets drawn to somewhere behind Sousuke, and the mechanic stands up. “Hey, Makoto! It’s been a while!”

Sousuke turns to watch Rin walk over to where a tall brunet man has just appeared. He has a soft smile on his face as he greets Rin, but the moment the two of them embrace, Sousuke distrusts the other human.

He turns back toward the television, trying his best not to eavesdrop as the coverage changes to the most recent speech given by the Samezuka Party’s candidate. His name is Wakatoshi Ushijima, and he has the look of a political candidate. Despite himself, Sousuke finds himself straining to hear Rin’s conversation with the other man instead.

“…dangerous to keep doing this, Rin,” the man murmurs, voice barely above a whisper.

“You worry too much, Makoto. Besides this time is different.”

“I really hope you’re right.”

Their words don’t make much sense to Sousuke, and without being able to see them, he can’t glean their meaning. He shouldn’t be eavesdropping anyway. Sousuke returns his attention fully to the screens, listening to the candidate speak instead.

“Humans have fought hard to make this world, this city their own. And as a man born and raised here I think humans should be the ones to keep it.” There’s an outbreak of applause at the statement, and Sousuke’s eyes narrow slightly. “Five years; that’s my promise. If you elect me, then I swear that in five years Tottori will be run and worked by humans without a single cyborg or robot stealing our job.” He doesn’t yell any of the words into the microphone, but the audience explodes in whoops and cheers. Ushijima himself looks impassive, as if he didn’t just stir half a city with his declaration.

The clip disappears, replaced once again by the news anchors who begin a discussion dissecting the speech and what they think that means for the next poll they’re already planning. But Sousuke doesn’t need to hear it to know what it means.

He has five years before he’s kicked out of even Iwatobi if this man wins the election. The robots can be scrapped for parts, being nothing but programmed machines. Currently, it’s illegal to do that to cyborgs, but if this man is in power for any amount of time, Sousuke could see that changing.

He’s not all that keen to discover if cyborgs can die or not.

He should just leave now. He doesn’t need the things he left in the dresser at Rin’s apartment. The most logical thing to do would be to leave the city now before the violence escalates.

But there’s something preventing him from doing that. Sousuke tells himself it’s because he doesn’t know much about the world outside of Tottori. It doesn’t make sense to run away from something you know, unprepared for the world outside, after all.

Besides, he thinks as he hears Rin’s laugh behind him, he has five years to figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you didn't see the art last chapter you can reblog it [here](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/tewateroniakwa/117132897842)
> 
> follow me on [tumblr](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/rinthegreat_ao3) for writing updates and to see how to support me!


	3. History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SouRin prompt: Childhood (loosely interpreted)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: edited! Once again the changes are very minor. Hope you enjoy! :)

The first week working for Rin is a learning experience. After dinner at the diner, which it turns out is owned by Makoto, they go back to the shop so Rin can maintenance Sousuke’s arm and leg. Nothing is out of place, but the mechanic still makes sure to strengthen the connections, especially the ones to Sousuke’s shoulder. When Rin hands him the metal weight, he’s able to hold it at his side without feeling a strain at all.

The next morning is when the real work begins. He wakes up just after dawn to the sound and smell of someone cooking breakfast. To Sousuke’s surprise, he slept comfortably and dreamlessly the entire night, despite the lumpy mattress. The mechanic turns when he hears Sousuke emerge. “Hey, I was just about to wake you up. How many eggs do you want? One or two?”

“Two,” Sousuke replies, taking his seat on one of the worn cushions at the short table. He positions himself so he can watch Rin as he cooks, observing the human’s motions. He cooks the same way he works: quickly and effectively. He manages to not make a mess of the small counter as he cracks two eggs and tosses them in the pan already sizzling with other ingredients.

It’s interesting, watching Rin. He does things in a way that no other human Sousuke has come across does. He can’t think of anyone he’s ever met who would offer his place and a job to someone they’d only met once before. And yet here Rin is, not only inviting him in, but cooking him food as well.

Breakfast is a mess of eggs with vegetables served over a slice of bread. It’s delicious. Sousuke usually only thinks of food as sustenance, a necessity to continue surviving, but he finds himself enjoying these eggs in a way he never has before. They eat quickly and silently before Rin collects the plates and walks them to the sink to wash along with the pan he’d used.

“Hurry and get ready,” the mechanic instructs over his shoulder. “We have a lot to get done today.”

Sousuke does as he’s asked, going into the bathroom to brush his teeth and clean his face. He pauses in front of the mirror, zooming in on his reflection with his eye. Nothing looks different from the day before when he left his apartment in the Sano district, and yet he feels changed in some way. He wonders if it’s something the humans call the _thrill of starting_ over but doesn’t take time to ponder the question. The LED in his retina shines against the mirror as he zooms out again and finishes his routine.

Rin finishes the dishes and gets himself ready faster than Sousuke had, brushing his teeth and tying his handkerchief over his hair before ushering Sousuke down to the shop. There are no open signs or hours of business on the windows, and he realizes that he has no idea when the store opens.

A rag comes flying at his face with no warning, and only Sousuke’s impeccable reflexes allow him to catch it. He wonders if this is going to become a habit.

“Clean up the work benches. The drawers are labelled where the tools go and the benches themselves need to be wiped down,” Rin informs him from where he’s standing at one of the benches across the room. Rin pulls a tarp off the top to reveal a half assembled robot, its parts strewn across the table. Automatically, Sousuke examines it to find a serial number. There is none.

“Is there any particular bench with which I should start?”

Rin shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. Just don’t touch this one, obviously. I’m working.”

The shop has four workbenches, including the one Rin’s working at. Sousuke starts with the easiest; the one he had laid on when he’d first met Rin. Based on the blanket and few tools laid there, Sousuke determines this is the bench the mechanic uses most often for repairing robots. It’s cleaner than the other three benches, leading the cyborg to believe it had been used recently.

He frowns a little at the thought, feeling something he can’t quite identify. It’s dislike, he realizes a moment later. Dislike that something else would be lying on this bench with the mechanic working on it. He dismisses the feeling instantly as an anomaly; Rin needs to make a living, and Sousuke hasn’t been here in a year. It’s illogical to think that he wouldn’t have worked on something else since that time.

That first bench doesn’t take him very long to clean in comparison to the other two. One of them is covered in scrap metal and parts that don’t look like they’ve been used for a long time. Sousuke puts everything away in the assigned drawers, though not all the tools are even on the right bench, and scrubs the tabletop clean before moving onto the next one.

The third isn’t covered in robotic parts at all. Instead the top is covered in a mess of household electronics and parts to old hovercrafts. It makes sense, Sousuke decides as he cleans and organizes the bench in question, that Rin would work on machines other than robots.

For how messy the shop first appeared, Sousuke’s surprised to discover that it’s strangely organized. Or rather, it has the organization laid out, though it seems to not have been used in some time. He’s wiping down the counter of the last bench with the rag Rin had tossed him when the door buzzes. The mechanic jerks up before turning to stare at the wall behind him. There’s a binary clock there that Sousuke hadn’t noticed before.

“Damn, I lost track of the time,” Rin curses. “Hey can you get – no never mind.” Rin sets down his tool and wipes off his hands, walking towards the door. “There are some gloves on the shelf in the back. Cover your hand and don’t make eye contact, alright?”

Sousuke nods his head and retreats to the back as Rin answers the door. Whoever is there exchanges words with Rin, and the mechanic invites them in as the cyborg finds the gloves Rin was talking about. To his surprise, there is a pair in his size. He tugs them on before turning around, intentionally not looking at the newcomer.

It’s a boy, a customer as evidenced by the broken robot in his hand. Sousuke’s eye automatically zooms in on the serial number, identifying it as one of the first models of wood-floor cleaners developed for commercial use. Rin takes the robot from the boy’s hands and pushes the blanket out of the way, setting it on the newly cleaned bench. The boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen, stands back and stares at Rin as the redhead examines the problem.

“Give me about an hour, and I’ll have it fixed,” Rin tells the customer. The boy thanks him and walks away, leaving Rin and Sousuke once again alone in the shop. “Sousuke, I need the hexdriver and goggles hanging on the back wall.”

Rin doesn’t look up as he addresses Sousuke, already reaching into the drawers to grab his tools. Sousuke scans the wall, easily finding what Rin wants, and delivers the items to Rin. The mechanic pulls the goggles on, turning on the bench light and adjusting his lens setting before he gets to work. Sousuke hovers there, once again fascinated by how the other works, until Rin’s voice cuts through the silence. “There’s a broom against the wall by the shelves.”

A clear dismissal.

Sousuke spends the hour sweeping and dusting the shop while Rin works on the robot. The boy returns and checks to make sure his robot is in tip top shape before he pays Rin and leaves. Sousuke notices that, along with having no hours of operation posted, Rin also doesn’t have prices for his services listed. The boy hadn’t asked; he just dropped a sack of coins on the table as if he knew what it would cost. Rin counts them and doesn’t seem upset, so it must be the right amount.

Other customers filter in and out during the day with problems varying from broken housekeeping robots to leaking motors on their hovercrafts. Rin fixes them all, shooting instructions to Sousuke without looking up from his tasks. Throughout the day, Sousuke works as a cleaner, a stand to hold the machines while Rin works on them at strange angles, and later even as an errand boy when he’s sent out to fetch items for a particularly challenging job.

The most impressive thing about the mechanic, Sousuke notes as he sweeps the floor for the eighth time that day, is that he manages to fulfill all his orders within the day. There isn’t a single customer he tells to come back the next morning. Some of the customers stick around to watch, seeming as fascinated in how Rin works as Sousuke himself is, but most of them stay just long enough to tell the mechanic what the problem is before leaving, only to return later to pay and pick up their fixed machine.

By the end of the day the two of them are sweaty and covered in dirt. Sousuke’s hair isn’t long, but the bangs hang down enough in his face that he understands why Rin wears handkerchiefs when he works.

Rin tells Sousuke to go up first and shower before returning to the robot he’d been working on before the customers had started to arrive. Sousuke obeys and doesn’t return downstairs, even when Rin doesn’t appear until well after the sun sets. They have a late dinner together that Rin cooks after the mechanic had finally come upstairs and showered.

“Can you cook?” Rin asks over the top of his bowl of noodles.

Sousuke swallows his bite first before nodding. “Yes.”

“Tomorrow we’ll go grocery shopping, and you can pick out what you want. We’ll switch off who cooks each day.”

\---

After that, they fall into an easy routine. Sousuke makes them simple cold lunches in the morning while Rin cooks breakfast, and they switch off who cooks dinner each night. During the day, Rin talks to the customers and repairs the machines while Sousuke cleans and runs errands for him. Before he knows it, they’ve reached the end of the week, and Rin announces that they’re going out to dinner that night instead of cooking.

_Out to eat_ means that they go back to the diner from before. Rin is once again greeted by Makoto, who smiles and welcomes them both inside. The three of them sit together at a booth towards the back for dinner.

“There’re rumors in the underground of an artist who’s working to make flesh for cyborgs,” Makoto informs Rin in a low voice. Sousuke looks around them, but they’re pretty well secluded in the back here.

“You sure?” Rin whispers back, his eyes darting to Sousuke briefly before focusing back on Makoto.

 “Yeah. I mean, I’m the one spreading the rumor.”

“What?”

“My boyfriend. He’s the artist. Figured you might want to know.”

Rin slaps Makoto’s arm, the action alarming Sousuke for a moment before he sees them both still smiling. “Get out. _That’s_ how you wanted to tell me you’re dating someone?”

Makoto chuckles. “Well that too, but I thought you’d be more interested in hearing about what he does.”

“That does interest me. Can you arrange an appointment with him for me? When can I meet him?”

The small smile on Makoto’s face grows in a way Sousuke can only describe as _dangerous_. “He’s actually meeting me here for dinner tonight.”

“No way! You should ask him to join –“

“Rin,” a new voice interrupts.

The three of them look up, and Sousuke surveys the newcomer for signs of trouble. He’s roughly the same height as Rin but skinnier, and his hair is a dark black. He’s looking straight at Rin, and for an illogical reason Sousuke doesn’t understand, he doesn’t trust this human.

His distrust is sealed when the mechanic finally reacts. “Haru?!”

Makoto slides out of the booth so Rin can get out and greet the new man face-to-face. _Haru_ meets Rin’s gaze impassively. “Long time no see.”

Rin looks between Haru and Makoto before saying incredulously. “ _He’s_ your artist boyfriend?”

Makoto nods, appearing almost apologetic, though Sousuke can’t fathom why. “We’ve known each other since we were kids.”

“I thought you were a chef,” Rin frowns at Haru instead of responding to Makoto. The tone of Rin’s voice is one Sousuke doesn’t recognize, but the first word to pop up is accusatory. He internally frowns at the adjective, not understanding the logic behind it.

“And I thought you were going to be a cop.”

Even without the help of his microchip, Sousuke can tell from the expression on Rin’s face that he’s angry. “Hey, Haru,” Makoto interrupts in a calm voice before the mechanic can respond. “Rin wants to look at your merchandise. Can you show him that?”

The impassive look on Haru’s face doesn’t change as his eyes dart from Rin to Makoto and back. “Yeah. It’s in the back, come on.” He turns and walks away. There’s a beat before Rin follows.

“Sorry about that.” Sousuke tears his eyes away from where they’d been watching Rin disappear to look at Makoto. They’re the only two left in the area, so Makoto must be addressing him. He has that same apologetic smile on his face as before. “I thought they’d be over it by now.”

“Over what?” Sousuke asks.

“Ah, yeah, I forget that people don’t know. Haru and Rin used to date.” A hot wave of anger overwhelms Sousuke for no reason, and he fights to regain control as Makoto continues. “It was a long time ago, back when Rin’s dad was still alive, but they dated for years. Even when Rin went through his rebellious ‘I want to be a cop’ phase.”

Makoto must notice the confusion in Sousuke’s expression, because he clarifies. “After Rin’s dad died, he decided he didn’t want to be a mechanic. He got his license to honor his father’s memory then enrolled in the police academy two districts over the same day.”

“There’s no record of Rin graduating from any police academy,” Sousuke says, remembering the search he’d performed on the other the day they first met.

Makoto nods. “That’s because he didn’t go through with it. A few months in, things started to go sour in their relationship. Rin’s such a romantic; he wanted to get married, but Haru wasn’t interested. So they split up, and they haven’t been on good terms since then. I figured it’s been six years, so they should be over it, but…” Makoto sighs, as if the situation were simply an irritant.

Sousuke isn’t sure how he’s expected to respond to this new information. Makoto thinks he’s a human as far as he knows, so he should be able to respond like one. His computer side works to come up with an answer, but all his organic side can focus on is an irrational fury directed at the man named Haru.

Sousuke works to calm himself down, trying to identify the cause of this anger. He runs a quick search using his chip, entering in his symptoms and the data. An answer arrives quickly, but the cyborg blinks at the answer. He refreshes the page, just to be sure.

Jealousy. His emotions are coined with the term jealousy.

That can’t be right. Jealousy is a human emotion; he’s not human and has no need for worthless emotions, so there’s no reason he would feel such a thing. Sure, like most cyborgs, Sousuke can feel happiness and anger, but something as inherently complicated as jealousy should be out of his reach. The computer translated it wrong. He isn’t jealous. He’s just angry.

Rin lives in a small flat a floor above his apartment, cooking breakfast and forgetting to eat lunch. He gets so invested in his work, he can’t even be bothered to stop to grab a new tool or sweep his floors. His side project is a nearly complete robot which he builds after he closes up shop for the day. The thought of that man being with someone who doesn’t love him for, Sousuke calculates, nearly four years simply makes him angry.

“I guess I was wrong,” Makoto’s voice once again sounds from the other side of the table. He’s gazing past Sousuke’s head with a somber smile on his face, so the cyborg turns to see what he’s looking at.

Haru and Rin are walking towards them from the kitchen, but all the animosity from earlier has disappeared. Rin’s saying something Sousuke’s ears can’t pick up, wearing a large grin on his face as he talks, and Haru’s own lips are upturned in a smile as he listens. They look good walking next to each other, Sousuke notes. Their heights match well, and they look relaxed together. That same spike of anger overwhelms him again for no reason. He wonders if there’s a programmer nearby he can have check out his computer. He makes a note to ask Rin later.

Sousuke’s thoughts are interrupted when Rin himself slides into the booth next to him. “Hey,” Rin greets the table as a whole, his mouth still drawn in a wide smile. Haru slips into the booth next to Makoto. “So I saw some of Haru’s work, and it’s not bad. He needs a test subject though. So Sousuke,” the cyborg turns his head automatically to meet Rin’s red eyes, “how would you feel about growing some skin?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on[Tumblr](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rinthegreat_ao3) to see what I'm working on and how to support me.


	4. Long Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke agrees to have Haru make him synthetic skin for his arm and leg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated! Minor changes like the others. :)

“Sousuke, how would you feel about growing some skin?”

Sousuke doesn’t know how to answer the question. He has skin covering 86.7% of his body. Real, organic skin. Or rather, skin as real as a cyborg can get.

Skin is constantly in a state of recycling itself, so in the strictest sense of the words: Sousuke is already ‘growing’ skin. However, he understands the meaning behind Rin’s statement. Rin’s not asking if he wants to have skin in general, he’s asking Sousuke if he’d be willing to have ‘skin’ covering his robotic limbs.

Never once has Sousuke been ashamed of what he is. Cyborgs have no need for useless emotions such as shame. However, with the recent rise of the Samezuka Party, it has become difficult for him to move about openly in public as well as he did before. The glove covering his hand is a glaring reminder of this. If he had skin instead, he wouldn’t need to wear gloves when customers came into Rin’s shop. He could walk around like a human; he could run errands for the mechanic without fear of his hand glinting out from the gloves.

“He won’t grow it, Rin. This isn’t real skin. It’s just a synthetic polymer I created for my art which can be dyed the same color as flesh and molded to fit any shape,” Haru says matter-of-factly from across the table before Sousuke can determine how he should answer. The words themselves are logical, but his interjection is less than wanted.

Rin waves his hand dismissively. “Whatever, question still stands. Sousuke? You interested in being Haru’s guinea pig?”

The term ‘guinea pig’ has become synonymous with ‘initial test subject’ in the human tongue, Sousuke discovers after a quick search. Rin is asking him to become Haru’s test subject.

The concept of fake skin intrigues him. He’s a danger to Rin as he is now, especially if anyone discovers that they’re living together. On the other hand, he doesn’t know if he would like having his metal constantly covered. He hasn’t tried the polymer yet, but in his mind it seems constricting.

Then, of course, is the fact he’d have to be around Haru. He doesn’t trust the human, doesn’t like him. What Sousuke is feeling might not be jealousy, but he can’t deny the anger that courses through him just seeing glance at Rin. Being Haru’s test subject would mean spending far more time with him than Sousuke ever wants to. Even being with him now is testing Sousuke’s patience.

But Rin’s smiling at him expectantly, and the organic part of Sousuke finds it impossible to disappoint him. “Yes,” he agrees, if only to see Rin’s grin widen.

“Awesome.” The excitement in the mechanic’s voice is palpable, his eyes sparkling in the moment before he turns back to the other two across from them. “I guess it was a good thing you invited your new boyfriend to dinner tonight, Makoto. By the way: congratulations.”

“Thanks, Rin.” Makoto says softly, a light flush across his cheeks.

The conversation veers away as the food arrives. Sousuke can’t remember ordering, but he supposes that isn’t necessary when the owner of the restaurant is sitting at the table with you. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I just got you the same as me,” Rin explains when a beef burger, named ‘hamburger’ by humans, is set in front of him.

He wonders if the problem in his microchip which is causing him to feel strange emotions is the same error which has allowed him to taste food as more than sustenance this past week. As such, he digs in expecting similar results.

What he’s met with is disappointing. The food is greasy and flavorless in comparison to what Rin had cooked for him during the week, despite this being the first meat he’s had in quite some time. Meat is expensive these days. That must be why Rin comes here so often. However, the vegetables cooked up with noodles and eggs on the cramped stove in their shared apartment have something this burger is missing. He can’t put his finger on what exactly that ‘something’ is, though.

Even so he finishes every last bite and nods in agreement with Rin when the redhead exclaims that this “is still the best burger, Makoto. Damn I miss meat.”

“You certainly seem to be getting plenty,” Haru remarks from across the table, taking a sip of his drink. The comment irks Rin for some reason, who turns a bright red and kicks Haru’s shin under the table. Despite all his searching, Sousuke can’t find a reason in his database for what the insult would be. He concludes that Haru is making a rude joke about the amount of money Rin makes repairing robots, and his already poor opinion of the other worsens.

Makoto chuckles though, and it confuses Sousuke more. He had previously also been of the mindset that the brunet could not be trusted, but that thought disappeared when he discovered the diner owner was a kind and caring human. Perhaps his first assessment had been correct. “Don’t torture him, Haru.”

Ah. This must be what humans call inside jokes. His database wouldn’t have anything on that. Sousuke doesn’t pry though, letting the other three talk and absorbing their words as they wash over him. It isn’t until the end of the meal that the subject of Sousuke being used as Haru’s guinea pig is brought up again.

“So when can my assistant stop wearing his gloves?” Rin asks after their plates are cleared, and they’re just sitting at the booth talking.

“Whenever. I need at least a week to make sure I’m fitting it right.”

“You need him to be there for a full week?” Rin asks before Sousuke has the chance to.

Haru inclines his head in a nod. “I need to be able to dye the material to match his skin, then fit it appropriately. You said he has two limbs which need skin. These things take time, Rin.”

Sousuke finally speaks up, reminding the humans that he’s still sitting at the table with them. “I cannot afford to lose a week working in Rin’s shop. There are still many things I need to learn.”

Rin waves his hand dismissively. “It’s fine, Sousuke. You wanted the skin, and I can manage without you. Haru when can this happen?”

“I said whenever.”

Sousuke and Rin exchange a look before the mechanic sighs, running his fingers through his hair. “I guess the sooner the better. I don’t have any major orders for this coming week, so it’s as good a time as any. Better than later, when I get used to having an assistant around.” That’s the final nail in the coffin, and Sousuke can’t find a reason to refuse.

“You’ll need to stay with me,” Haru says unnecessarily as they stand up.

Makoto stops Haru before he leaves, leaning in to whisper something intimate. Sousuke turns away, giving them privacy. He means to talk to Rin, but before he can say anything, he notices the look on Rin’s face as he watches the couple; something akin to disappointment.

But then Sousuke blinks and the mechanic is smiling at him instead. “Haru’s a handful, but he knows how to be professional. I’ll see you in a week.” He holds up his hand in a fist. The cyborg looks down at it then back at Rin confused. The mechanic laughs. “You bump it with your own. Like this.” He demonstrates with his other hand, balling it into a fist then tapping the two together.

Sousuke holds up his own hand, the robotic one, balling it into a fist for the other to ‘bump’. Rin obliges, grinning at him. “The next time we do this you won’t need those gloves,” Rin tells him. His smile is so infectious, Sousuke finds his lips twitching to turn upwards themselves. He can’t remember the last time he smiled, if ever. He never gets a chance to experience the motion though, because Haru is there, and Rin drops his arm.

“Break it up, we have a lot of work to do,” Haru says, passing between the two of them as Sousuke’s own hand returns to his side. He reluctantly follows the artist out the door of the diner to his hoverbike. The cyborg climbs on the back of the bike behind Haru, glancing back once at Rin before the two of them ride away.

The metropolis is large and sprawling, and as such, so are its districts. Sousuke’s database acts as a map, superimposing the image over the streets as they fly over them. Despite Haru’s speed and the time they are on the bike, they still haven’t left the Iwatobi district. The district is large, and when they finally reach the edge of it, they’re also at the edge of the city.

Out here are small duplexes and short apartment buildings instead of the mega-complexes and skyscrapers evident in the heart of the city. Haru lives in one of the small duplexes. They stop in front of the building, and the artist slides off first as Sousuke looks around. Beyond the metropolis is nothing but desert. He knows there are more cities there, maybe even farmland somewhere, but from where they are it looks more like a barren wasteland than anything else.

“You coming?” Haru asks, and Sousuke turns to see him standing at the door already. He climbs off the motorbike and walks up the path, following the other inside. It’s larger than Rin’s apartment and Sousuke’s old flat in the Sano district combined. And yet it feels somehow less welcome than either.

Haru leads him to a room turned into a studio. It’s similar to Rin’s workshop in the sense of organized chaos. However, unlike Rin’s shop, this studio is more chaos than organized. There are easels covered with half-finished drawings and paintings strewn about the room. Tubs take up center of the floor, filled with a foul smelling liquid which Sousuke assumes must be part of the polymer skin.

“This is where I make the polymer,” Haru explains simply. The impassive expression is back on his face, and his tone of voice doesn’t have the slight lilt to it like when he talked to Rin. Rin was right; Haru can be professional when he needs to be.

“How would you like to start?” Sousuke asks, determined to remain professional as well despite his irritation with the artist.

Haru waves his hand, leading them out of the room. “We’ll start in the morning. For now I need to sleep.”

He shows Sousuke to a small spare room. It’s a little bigger than the one Sousuke lives in now with Rin, but the only item inside is a futon laid out on the floor. “You can sleep here,” Haru informs him. He departs from the room without making any more small talk, leaving Sousuke alone.

Sousuke’s used to sleeping by himself. The cyborg has never had to share a bed with another creature, but for some reason he can’t push away the feeling of emptiness permeating the room. The futon is no lumpier than the mattress he sleeps on in Rin’s apartment, but he can’t get comfortable. When he finally does manage to shut his mind down to rest, his sleep is shallow and fitful, and he wakes feeling unrested and confused. It takes Sousuke a minute to remember that he’s not in Rin’s apartment, and his mood worsens.

When he exits the room, he’s greeted with the sounds and smells of cooking. Haru is cooking mackerel, and it doesn’t taste anything like Rin’s eggs with vegetables. Sousuke finishes his offered meal, treating it as the sustenance it is instead of enjoying it the way he’d become accustomed to.

Much like Rin, once Haru begins working, he doesn’t stop until the sun goes down. Sousuke is instructed to stand, wearing only his boxers as the other measures his limbs and covers them in some strange slime. The artist doesn’t explain what he does as he works, and Sousuke doesn’t ask. Instead he allows his mind to wander back to the mechanic shop.

Rin would be opening the door at this time, propping it open so customers can filter in and out without him having to look up from his work. He would have woken up hours ago for breakfast before working on his robot. Sousuke had watched him shape the machine the week before. It looks like any old robot, but the way Rin’s connected the parts inside is far different from any robot he’s seen before. He wonders what its purpose will be.

Customers in Rin’s shop are a steady flow. His first would be getting there by now, handing Rin a broken machine with little to no explanation. It wouldn’t matter though. Rin can fix it. He would give them a time to return and then get to work without missing a beat.

Sousuke wonders if the mechanic’s holding his hand out, calling names of tools and waiting for them to be delivered in his hand. He doesn’t think so. Rin’s worked for years without an assistant and can last a week without him, but the thought warms him regardless. He wonders how much it will slow Rin down to have to stop working to get up and grab his own tools.

Rin doesn’t talk much while he works. He’s too focused for idle chit chat, and Sousuke has no need to initiate it himself. However, being here with Haru is too quiet. The artist doesn’t have an assistant and doesn’t use power tools or work with metal, so the only sounds in the room are of the two of them breathing and the occasional swish of fabric as Haru moves.

It’s midday when Haru brings the tubs over. They’re filled with a liquid material of a strange consistency. It’s a grey color which looks like murky water, but Haru dips a long, wooden rod inside and lifts up what appears to be a solid. He places it in an empty tub and mixes in a conglomeration of colors, stirring it for hours until the shade matches Sousuke’s skin.

The artist sets the tub aside and wipes Sousuke’s arm down, cleaning it of the slime from earlier. He replaces it with something similarly slippery, rubbing it evenly up and down the cyborg’s robotic arm. Haru waits for the new slime to set and dry on top of Sousuke’s arm before he adds the not-liquid from the tub. He starts at the shoulder where metal meets skin, and works his way down slowly.

Haru adds and takes away the material as he goes, matching the size and shape of the robotic one to the organic one on Sousuke’s other side. The artist finishes one layer by the time the sun sets. Sousuke stays still the entire time, not moving as Haru puts away the tubs and slime and tools. When the other returns, it’s with a plastic sheet which he wraps around the other’s arm before allowing him to sit down.

They have mackerel for dinner, cooked the exact same way as it had been for breakfast. Sousuke doesn’t complain, and as soon as they finish eating he departs to the guest room for another night of restless sleep.

The rest of the week continues much in the same way. Haru layers the polymer on Sousuke’s arm until it perfectly matches his organic one. Sousuke doesn’t like the artist much, but he has to admit that the man is talented.

They do his leg next, this time with Sousuke seated on a stool. His robotic leg only comes up to his knee, but because of his foot it takes a whole two and a half days longer to finish than his arm. By the time Haru finally finishes, Sousuke has eaten fourteen meals made of only mackerel and hasn’t spoken a single word since he had first arrived.

“I’ll apply the finishing touches tomorrow morning,” Haru informs him over their fourteenth mackerel meal. Sousuke’s arm and leg are both wrapped in plastic now. “We’re going to the diner for lunch.”

“Very well.” His voice sounds strange to his own ears after having said nothing for the past seven days.

Sousuke would prefer to go straight back to the mechanic’s shop rather than the diner. His thoughts haven’t left the shop or its owner the entire week. But he’s in no position to argue, especially considering the man taking him to the diner the next day is the same man who just enabled him to walk around without wearing an overly warm jacket to disguise himself.

He examines his hand in the moonlight that night after they go to bed. The new skin is covered by the plastic still, but even so, Sousuke can tell that it looks exactly like his other hand. He looks…human. That’s the only term for it.

As far as his database tells him, there isn’t a single human cell in his body. He’s an organically grown creature, who was bonded together by metal before he completed his development, much like all the other cyborgs. But looking at his plastic covered hand illuminated by the moonlight, he could pass as being completely human.

Just like Rin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rinthegreat_ao3)


	5. A Dark and Stormy Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SouRin Week day 5: Celebrities part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 2/10/2018: Chapter has been updated! I am mostly really happy with this fic, so the changes are pretty minor.

Rin isn’t in the diner when they arrive, to Sousuke’s displeasure. There are a few people scattered here and there in booths, but as it’s nearly empty at this hour. The cyborg scans the room for the red hair which has been on his mind for the past seven days and is _not_ disappointed when he doesn’t find it. Cyborgs have no need for disappointment.

Haru leaves his side almost immediately after entering the building, making a beeline for the back room without instructing Sousuke with what to do next. Sousuke stands in the entrance, not sure what he should do now, until the artist reappears with his boyfriend. Makoto’s smile is wide, genuine when he approaches.

“Sousuke, it’s good to see you.” His eyes dart down to the cyborg’s hand, and Sousuke holds it out for the other to shake. Haru had made it well; it doesn’t slip when Makoto grasps it. “It feels real,” Makoto gasps, looking between the two of them.

Haru nods. “I also made it so it can be peeled off for maintenance without losing its shape.”

“Have you showed Rin yet?” Makoto asks, clearly surprised when Sousuke shakes his head. “Haru, why would you come straight here? I thought the whole point of doing this was for Rin…”

“I missed you,” Haru says in an emotionless, matter of fact tone of voice. For some reason, Makoto flushes at the words. His face matches the color of Rin’s hair, a bright, vibrant red. What would Rin look like if his face turned the same color? Would he resemble a tomato, made of more red than flesh? Or would the matching shades compliment each other nicely?

Sousuke tries to picture it, but the mere image of Rin’s face conjured in his mind is enough to derail his plans.

“Would you like me to message him?” Makoto asks, bringing Sousuke back to reality. “He’s working, but I’m sure he’d be happy to take a break and come over.”

The thought of interrupting the mechanic while he’s working is unacceptable. Blasphemous even. Sousuke shakes his head. “There’s no need. I remember the way and can return without causing an unnecessary interruption.”

Makoto raises an eyebrow but nods. “Fair enough. It looks great, by the way. I think Rin will be really happy.”

Sousuke isn’t sure how the human expects him to respond to that, so he gives a slight bow of his head. “Thank you, Makoto. And thank you, Haru. If you need to perform any maintenance check-ups please let me know.”

Haru waves his hand at him dismissively. “I’ll let Rin know before I come over, don’t worry.”

Sousuke frowns. No one tells Rin before they come over; they show up when his shop opens. Why would the artist be any different? He almost asks, but Haru is already turning back toward his boyfriend to whisper in his ear. Whatever he says causes Makoto’s face to burn a deep red again. It’s the ideal moment for Sousuke to take his leave. He does just that, turning and heading towards the door without looking back.

Sousuke moves at a brisk pace back to Rin’s shop. It is more to get out of the sun than to see the mechanic sooner, Sousuke reasons internally. His new skin is safe to wear in the sunlight, but Haru had warned him that the pigment won’t darken the same way his organic skin will.

The shop isn’t far from the diner, and soon Sousuke is in the alley leading to their apartment. The door to the shop is propped open the same as any other day, so Sousuke walks in without knocking, ignoring the hammering in his chest. It is, naturally, caused by the speed at which he’d been walking to get out of the sun.

Rin doesn’t look up when he walks in, too focused on the job in front of him. There’s a little boy with pale pink hair sitting on a tall stool at the end of the bench, watching the mechanic as he works. The machine this time looks like a dog; a robotic pet released ten years earlier, designed for families who couldn’t afford the real thing. Like most robots, it has a practical purpose as well. This one doubles as a floor cleaner with interchangeable paws for carpet, wood, and tile. The design had been popular at one time, but this model had been discontinued years ago.

Even a discontinued robot isn’t enough to slow Rin down. He’s that talented a mechanic.

Sousuke stays near the door, silently watching Rin as he works. He’s wearing the goggles for this job, complete with the magnifying glass attached to the right eye to focus in on small objects. Rin works quietly but efficiently, and the only sound in the room is from the small child shifting weight. Out of the corner of his eye, Sousuke sees the child stare at him openly, but the minute Sousuke turns his head, the child looks away.

Finally, Rin appears to finish. He looks up from the robot, making eye contact with Sousuke at the door. His already magnified eye widens comically, and the image of it is so amusing that Sousuke’s lips finally turn upwards in their first smile. The two of them gaze at each other long enough that the child shifts his weight again, clearing his voice in a small, “Um…”

Rin tears his gaze away from Sousuke first, pushing his goggles on top of his head as he turns to the little boy. “Ayumi should be fine, just be sure to use the proper paws when cleaning floors next time,” Rin instructs, handing the robot to the pink-haired child.

The little boy nods, hopping off the stool. “Thank you, Rin-onii,” he says in a soft voice. He drops the payment into Rin’s outstretched hand and takes the robot. Sousuke steps to the side so the boy can run out, leaving him and Rin alone in the shop.

They gaze at each other silently again for a moment before Rin breaks the silence.

“I didn’t know you’d be back today,” he says, turning away from the door to grab his rag and clean off the bench he’d just worked on. His voice sounds strange to Sousuke; it’s hard to determine if the tone is one of happiness or not.

Sousuke steps out of the way of the door. “Haru finished his final touches this morning and drove me to the diner,” he informs Rin. The artist’s name sounds strange in his mouth, but he doesn’t have another name to call him. Sousuke would prefer to refer to him as ‘the artist’ but experience and past research have both taught him that it’s rude to refer to a human by something other than their name once it’s known.

Despite seven days with the artist, Sousuke still doesn’t have a completely favorable opinion of him.

“Why didn’t he drive you here? Or message me letting me know?” Rin grumbles.

The tone of voice gives him away: Rin isn’t happy to see Sousuke again. Perhaps it would’ve been better to stay at the diner and let Makoto message Rin. Though, what would’ve happened if Rin had replied with ‘don’t let him return’?

Sousuke is uncertain what his next actions should be. This is his new residence and job, so if he’s forced out he has nowhere to go. He sincerely hopes that Rin’s lack of enthusiasm is temporary, and that in a few days he’ll be pleased to have a cyborg working for him again. Rin’s lived by himself for a long time; it isn’t surprising that he’d grown accustomed to being alone again. And Sousuke is certainly _not_ upset that Rin doesn’t want to see him after a week.

“Hey, can I see?”

Rin’s voice surprises Sousuke. He’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed the other finish cleaning off his work bench and walk over to him. The cyborg blinks, discovering Rin’s standing right in front of him observing his arm. “Yes,” he agrees finally, holding his arm out to the other.

Humans use language in such a strange way. By ‘see’ Rin means with his hands, not his eyes. He grabs Sousuke’s robotic hand in his own, gasping when he feels the synthetic skin. “It feels real,” he says, mirroring the words Makoto had spoken in the diner earlier.

Rin slides his fingers up and down Sousuke’s arm, turning his hand over to observe the fingers and palm. “You have fingerprints?” He asks, surprise evident in his voice.

“Yes.” Haru had pressed Sousuke’s other fingers into the drying polymer, creating a mirror image of the prints on his opposite hand.

The mechanic moves his hands up to the crease of Sousuke’s elbow, pausing to observe the folds before continuing up. He pushes the sleeve of Sousuke’s shirt up to his shoulder, making Sousuke shiver when he feels Rin’s touch on his real skin.

“There isn’t even a crease where it connects. No difference at all,” Rin remarks, clearly impressed by the work as he continues to trace his finger over the spot where the synthetic material meets his organic skin. “This is where I remember connecting your arm.” The mechanic looks up at him, meeting Sousuke’s gaze with his own. “Can you feel it?”

Sousuke shakes his head. He’s almost sorry the answer is no when Rin’s face shows clear disappointment. “I can only feel where you touch my organic skin.”

Rin must take that as a hint of some kind, because he backs away, scratching the back of his head with a light flush to his cheeks. “Right, sorry.”

There’s nothing to be sorry about as far as Sousuke is concerned, but he finds himself unable to say those words aloud. His heart is hammering in his chest as if he ran all the way from Haru’s house here, and he doesn’t have enough breath to speak.

Rin clears his throat. “So how am I supposed to maintenance you?” The flush is still high on his cheeks and he’s staring at something on the floor to the right of Sousuke instead of at him.

A picture as clear as day bursts into his mind of walking over to the mechanic and wrapping his arms around him. He’d lift him up and set him on the bench so they’d be at eye level, giving him a better angle for him to drop his lips against Rin’s and –

“Sousuke? Are you okay?”

It’s an apt question. The room is spinning, and he feels like his heart is going to burst right out of his chest, and then he will die right here on the unswept floor of the mechanic shop he works in. His computer scans his internal organs to try and determine the cause of his sudden ailment, but nothing can be found. It’s similar to a human allergic reaction; his body is reacting to nothing. His microchip works in overdrive, sending signals into his brain to release chemicals to calm his breathing and heartrate, and finally he’s left standing there as if nothing had happened.

“Sousuke?” The mechanic prompts again.

Sousuke takes a breath, regaining control. “It can be taken off and retain its shape,” he replies calmly. Rin frowns a little at him, opening his mouth, but then he closes it and shakes his head.

“Alright. And the same with your leg?”

“Yes.”

Rin nods. If he has anything more to say, he doesn’t get the chance; the door opens as a new customer comes in. Sousuke takes it as his opportunity to grab the broom and begin sweeping the floor. Judging by the dust, it hasn’t been swept since he had last been here.

They fall back into their routine, Rin shouting names of equipment at him to bring over as Sousuke cleans up around the shop, and the afternoon goes smoothly.

They work the rest of the day until it’s time to close up shop, and Rin removes the tarp to work on his robot. It’s almost done, Sousuke notes. The machine had taken shape and now all that Rin seemed to be doing was tweaking the circuit in its head.

“Would you like me to prepare dinner?” He asks, pausing at the foot of the stairs to look at Rin.  

The mechanic stops working, covering up the robot’s circuit with the metal outer shell again. “No, you just got back. I’ll cook. We’ll go shopping tomorrow.” He gestures for Sousuke to head upstairs and follows, not overworking himself for once.

They talk as they eat, sharing stories from the week. Sousuke doesn’t have much to say, but he explains the method Haru used to create his skin. Rin’s impressed with Haru’s attention to detail on things such as his pores and the lines on his palm.

Rin laughs when Sousuke mentions they had two meals of mackerel per day. “He’s been like that since we met,” the mechanic tells him with a grin, sipping from his water. Sousuke’s stomach churns, and he sets his chopsticks down, afraid he ate something to upset it.

Rin tells him about the customers who had come in during the week. There was a whole gang of hoverbikers who wanted their engines juiced up for a race against a rival group. Apparently they paid Rin enough so he could afford to buy steak. “I’ll make some this week,” Rin promises. “I was waiting until you came back to cook it. We’ll use it to celebrate you not having to wear gloves in public anymore.” Sousuke’s stomach had just returned to normal, but he has to stop eating again when it flips over on itself.

Everything falls back into place without any trouble. Sousuke’s room hasn’t been touched, and he sleeps deeply and easily like he couldn’t the past week. Rin cooks breakfast as he did before while Sousuke prepares the shop, and the two of them work through the day as if they had been working together their entire lives.

They pick up the steak and vegetables that Rin wants and go about their grocery shopping for the week and then everything is as it had been before. They trade off who cooks dinner, and Sousuke prepares lunches for Rin so he doesn’t forget to eat.

The steak is delicious when they finally have it. Rin even breaks out two cans of soda that he’d been saving for a special occasion. Sousuke had missed enjoying his food. He knows the mechanic will want to go back to the diner sometime soon, but he can’t imagine those greasy burgers tasting as good as Rin’s homemade steak.

They don’t have work the next day. Rin closes shop one day per week so he can take care of other things and have a day of rest. Sousuke’s washing the dishes, his database searching for the nearest programmer so he can get his chip checked when it happens.

The intercom buzzes loudly throughout the flat, making him jump a little where he stands. Rin had been in the bathroom, getting ready for bed, but he bursts out at the sound wearing only his pants and a towel around his neck. “Sousuke, get the door,” he instructs in a voice more serious than Sousuke had heard him use before.

“Are you expecting someone?” he asks, trying to recall if there were any customers who had a special appointment. His records show nothing.

Rin shakes his head, disappearing into his room. “Just get the door!” he calls.

Sousuke laces up his boots and goes down into the shop. The person rings the intercom again before he can get to the door. He looks at the screen to see who it is but doesn’t recognize the man outside. Regardless, Rin instructed him to open the door, so he does just that.

The man stumbles inside, supporting a second person Sousuke couldn’t see through the monitor. The second person appears to be injured, and without waiting for the cyborg to acquiesce, the man carries the other into the shop and lays him down on the bench. There’s a flash of lightning outside which illuminates the room, and Sousuke realizes it’s pouring rain outside. He closes the door and turns on the lights, observing the newcomers.

The two people are sopping wet and had dripped water into the shop in their hurry. The man standing has dark blue hair and is attempting to clean off his glasses on his soaked t-shirt. He doesn’t seem to notice that he isn’t making any progress, instead staring down at the person on the bench.

Sousuke steps closer, looking at the person on the bench. He’s blonde and appears unconscious, probably due to the blood smeared on one side of his head. There are hasty footsteps as Rin races down the stairs, and then the mechanic is there.

“Rei,” he addresses the blue-haired man, “what happened?” The other looks up at Rin, and Sousuke notices hoe puffy and red his eyes are. He appears to have been crying.

“Rin-san,” Rei says in a strained voice, “some of the Samezuka Gang saw us as I was trying to sneak Nagisa into my new building and –”

“I understand, let me have a look at him.” Rin turns on the bench light and pulls on his goggles. Sousuke is about to speak, to remind Rin that he is a mechanic, not a doctor, when the other pushes back some of the blonde hair from the man’s face on the table.

He’s no man at all.

Metal gleams up at Sousuke, smeared with blood just like the other side of the blonde’s face. Now that Sousuke can look at him, he sees that the man’s neck is also metallic though his arms are both organic.

He’s a cyborg, the same as Sousuke, and a sharp stab of anger pierces his heart. He takes a few steps back, unnoticed by Rin or the strange man named Rei, who are both focused on the half-machine in front of them.

Sousuke’s not jealous. Jealousy shouldn’t exist for a cyborg like him. And yet he’s angry, even though it doesn’t make sense. Rin is incredibly talented. So much so that he’s surprised the mechanic isn’t famous. Of course people would come to him for emergency repairs.

But Sousuke had always thought he was the only cyborg Rin had ever worked on.

Sousuke steps back next to the window as another flash of lightning illuminates the shop. There’s no more denying it; he has irrational, illogical, _human_ feelings for Rin, and they need to be eliminated.


	6. The Other Cyborg and His Programmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SouRin Week day 5 part 2: Celebrities  
> Sousuke speaks with Rei and Nagisa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/3/2018: minor updates made. nothing to change the story, no worries!

Sousuke stays out of the way as Rin works on the other cyborg. The mechanic is as deft as ever, his hands moving expertly along the seam where the other’s skin meets the metal of his face. He looks away when Rin removes it, revealing the bloodied connections beneath.

The entire situation is far too similar to how he and Rin first met. Back then, he remembers the mechanic admitting that Sousuke was the first cyborg he’d ever worked on. He remembers how impressed he had been with the other’s speed and accuracy, things he takes for granted now.

“Sousuke,” Rin speaks up, interrupting his thoughts. “Take Rei upstairs and get him some tea while I work.”

Sousuke looks back over at the bench. The man in question is still wiping his glasses on his soaked shirt, not seeming to realize that it’s not doing an ounce of good. He’s intently gazing down at the other cyborg, clearly in the way. The man doesn’t appear to have heard Rin’s words, so Sousuke walks up to the other and places his hand on his arm. The other jumps.

“I am taking you upstairs.” He makes sure to speak with the same voice he used to intimidate criminals back on the force. The man, Rei, doesn’t appear intimidated. He looks…Sousuke searches his database for a proper word.

Hopeless. Pitiful. Forlorn.

Rei nods eventually and lets Sousuke lead him up the stairs and into the apartment. He removes his shoes before going and sitting on the couch. Sousuke leaves him there, going into the kitchen to prepare tea.

He stares at the pot, not seeing it as he lets his database search for a programmer near him again. Sousuke pauses at a familiar name, expanding the tab to read it. Rei Ryugazaki. He’s a famous programmer; a genius who is credited with robotic interchanging abilities due to his loop programming method. Sousuke has heard of him before but hadn’t realized he was in a nearby district.

According to the database, he had lived in the rich Sano district until recently when he moved to the Sakiaminato district. He most likely moved for the same reason Sousuke had: the Samezuka Party.

The likelihood of this Rei being the same Rei is low. It’s a popular name for both men and women after all. However, the man had brought a wounded cyborg into Rin’s shop. Perhaps this is the same Rei after all.

Sousuke turns off the stove as the kettle whistles and pours tea into the teapot along with the leaves. He carries it and two cups over to the table where he and Rin eat and sits down, observing the other man.

Rei is still trying to clean his glasses with his wet shirt. Sousuke stands up again, grabs a rag, and returns. He holds it out to the man who accepts it easily. “Thank you,” Rei says politely. He still appears upset.

Sousuke doesn’t have any training in how to comfort an upset human. He pours the cups of tea and offers one to the man, hoping that helps a little. “Thank you,” Rei repeats, placing his glasses on his face finally and accepting the cup.

“Are you cold?” Sousuke asks, noting that the man’s clothes are still sopping wet.

“I am a little cold,” the man admits.

Sousuke stands up once more, going into his room and grabbing the extra blankets he keeps under the bed. He comes out and hands them to the man. “Thank you,” Rei says a third time. “I don’t believe I know your name. I’m Rei. Rei Ryugazaki.”

Ah. So he is the famous programmer.

This is a small world indeed, that Rin would know an artist who can make him synthetic skin and be on a first name basis with such a famous programmer. “Sousuke,” he says holding out his hand. Then he takes a risk. “Designation SY914185.” He pushes up his sleeve and peels down the synthetic skin from his own, revealing his robotic arm.

_That_ catches the man’s attention. Rei’s eyes widen, and he moves down from the couch onto the cushion next to him. “You’re a cyborg.”

Sousuke rolls the skin up, letting it snap back down against his shoulder. “You brought a cyborg in.”

“Designation NH801165,” Rei informs him easily. “But I just call him Nagisa.”

Sousuke runs a quick search of his database, almost immediately finding the cyborg in question. NH801165, a former cyborg astronaut who had been discharged from duty exactly two months prior. “Are you his programmer?” Sousuke asks, wondering if his own former programmer would’ve done the same if he had been put in danger.

Rei nods. “I was when he was an astronaut. It is how we met.” The past tense doesn’t escape Sousuke’s notice.

“Was?”

“Well, yes. I allowed him to live with me after he was stripped of his career. However once I was let go from my own, we were forced to find a new place of residence.”

“Why would you take him in?” Sousuke asks, unable to stop the question.

Rei flushes but doesn’t look away. “I am in love with him.”

Sousuke isn’t exactly surprised by the answer, but it still doesn’t make sense to him. Cyborgs are partly organic and partly mechanical, but no part of them is human. There is no purpose in a human falling for something that is mostly a machine, just as there is no purpose in a machine falling for a human. “Love,” he says finally, the words thick on his tongue, “is not a concept cyborgs understand.”

Rei shakes his head. “Love is something that any sentient being can experience, especially one such as yourself or Nagisa.” He can clearly see the disagreement on the cyborg’s face, because the programmer continues. “Love is the feeling of wanting the other person to be happy, no matter what. It is what you feel when you can’t control simple things like your heartrate or breathing. It is smiling when they smile, laughing when they laugh, and crying when they cry. Love is the subject of songs and poems and stories and fairy tales. Simply put, SY914185, it is difficult to describe exactly what love is, but you know it when you feel it.”

His heart clenches at the words, his thoughts unable to stay away from the mechanic downstairs. He swallows thickly, still not believing what the programmer is saying. “Cyborgs have no use for emotions like that.”

“Because you are half machine? You are forgetting about your other half; the half which is capable of feeling things such as love, jealousy, joy, and sadness. I came across too many others who believe the same as you in my work. Cyborgs can fall in love, just the same as humans.”

He wants to refute him, to tell the programmer that he’s mistaken. But he can’t stop thinking about Rin fixing robots and other machines with such single-minded concentration that he forgets to eat. He can’t stop his mind from going back to the way Rin’s eye had widened in his goggle, making Sousuke smile for the first time. Or how Rin cooks him breakfast every morning, and Sousuke cooks them lunch. He can’t help himself from thinking of the feeling of Rin’s fingers against his shoulder as he tries to find the break between the synthetic material and his organic skin.

So he doesn’t say anything.

They sit there, sipping silently at their tea until the door finally rattles and opens. Rei stands up immediately, his face one of obvious concern and worry, but the only person at the door is an exhausted Rin. He slips off his boots before walking inside, closing the door behind him. “He’s fine,” Rin announces, sinking down on the couch. “He just needs rest.”

Rei doesn’t relax or sit down though; he just sets down his tea. “May I see him?”

“He’s sleeping.” But Rin’s warning doesn’t register for the other. He drops the blankets and barely manages to slip on his shoes before he runs out the door, back down to the shop. “Damn, those two are gonna be the death of me,” the mechanic groans laying his head back against the cushions.

“You know how we met?” Rin asks, staring at the ceiling.

Sousuke isn’t given a chance to answer though.

“Nagisa used to be an astronaut or something, and he came back this one time, crash landing his damn pod in the middle of the street. Huge crater out there, construction for weeks. Anyway, he’d broken off half his foot. So he searched for the nearest mechanic shop, not even bothering to check if there are any cyborg mechanics in the area, and came across mine. He limped in, dragging his shattered foot behind him with a stupid smile on his face. Scared the shit out of the customer in there. I thought she was gonna have a heart attack.” Rin grins a little at that.

“I fixed him up, told him he was lucky I’d already fixed up a cyborg before, and when I asked for payment he didn’t have any money on him. So he made me call up his programmer to come get him and pay for it, and that’s how I met Rei. Poor guy; always getting dragged around by Nagisa.”

Rin sits up and looks at him finally. “They recommended me to a bunch of other cyborgs, so now if any of them need maintenance and they’re in the area, they come to me. It’s dangerous, especially with all the big changes going on. I hadn’t seen any in a couple months though. I thought the violence had finally died down.”

Rin has a faraway thoughtful look on his face, but he shakes it off. “At least we have that synthetic skin now. How does it feel?”

“I cannot feel it.”

“Well, that’s a good thing. At least it’s not uncomfortable.” Rin gives him a small, tired smile. “Thanks for calming him down, by the way. He gets…upset when anything happens to Nagisa.”

Sousuke wonders if the mechanic knows about the other two. He wonders briefly what Rin thinks about a cyborg and a human dating. Sousuke decides he doesn’t want to know. “I brewed him tea, and told him what I was.”

Rin is clearly surprised by this. “You told him you’re a cyborg?”

“Yes.”

“Ah well. I guess he’s in a similar situation. I’ll send him to Haru, and then hopefully this won’t happen again. Not that I don’t like seeing them, but I don’t like seeing them like this.”

Sousuke nods, mostly understanding what the other means. Humans are known to dislike seeing their friends in pain. “How did you treat his head wound?”

“I’ve had some basic first aid training. It seemed like his outer shell absorbed most of the blow, but he might have a concussion. Rei will know. He’s got some medical knowledge. More than I do anyway.” Rin yawns widely. He should sleep. Tomorrow is their day off, and the mechanic has plans to visit his friends at the diner and work on his robot side project. He can’t do that if he’s too tired.

There’s a soft knock on the door, and Rin rolls off the couch onto his feet and pads over to the door. He and Rei exchange a few quiet words, and Rin walks back to the couch, grabbing the blankets Sousuke had gotten out earlier. “There’s a cot in the back. Shut the door all the way behind you when you leave,” he instructs, and the door closes.

“I’m going to bed,” Rin informs him, yawning widely again.

Sousuke checks the time. It’s three in the morning. They were both going to sleep four hours ago.

He waits until Rin disappears into his room before he cleans up the mugs and teapot. Rei had dripped some water on the floor, despite putting his shoes on, so he wipes that up as well.

It’s after 4 a.m. when Sousuke finally washes his face and goes to bed. He lies on the mattress for another hour, staring at the moon through the window. Sousuke doesn’t know if he’ll be able to fall asleep.

Love.

The way the programmer had described it, it sounds exactly how Sousuke feels about Rin. And yet he’s always thought of love as something which can only be felt by humans, towards humans after a long period of time. He’s a cyborg, and he’s only been living with Rin for two weeks now.

Can he have feelings this strong for the mechanic already? Can he have feelings this strong for the mechanic at all?

Rei is in love with Nagisa, that much he knows. It isn’t as strange to imagine a human in love with a cyborg as it is to picture a cyborg in love with a human. Nagisa is the one he should speak to, he decides.

Before he can change his mind, he gets out of bed, pulls on a shirt and his shoes, and heads downstairs to the shop. He can hear the soft snores of the programmer breathing in the corner, but he isn’t the one Sousuke needs to speak to this time. He walks to the bench where he had first lay when he met Rin and looks down at the cyborg there.

His hair is pushed back from his face by the bandage wrapped around his forehead, revealing the newly polished metallic skull. “NH801165, wake up,” Sousuke instructs.

The blond cyborg opens his eyes, blinking up at Sousuke. His eyes are both pink, but the one on the metallic side of his face is clearly mechanical, while the other appears organic. Unlike Sousuke, this cyborg sticks out in a crowd. He will need more than synthetic skin to fit in.

“Who are you?” Nagisa asks, blinking at him. His voice isn’t emotionless or robotic the way Sousuke’s can be. Instead it sounds curious, almost childlike.

“Designation SY914185, but the humans call me Sousuke,” he introduces himself.

“Sousuke, huh?” Nagisa asks, sitting up. He looks around the room, and Sousuke notes that the other cyborg may appear more mechanical than him, but he acts far more human. “So I must be in Rin-chan’s shop.” He frowns, recalling the events from earlier. “Oh yes, I was beaten again. Rei-chan won’t be happy.”

The other cyborg is…strange. Sousuke has met his fair share of cyborgs, especially while working in the Sano Police Department, but he’s never met one who addresses humans so casually and speaks in such a unique way. “So what do you want from me, Sou-chan?”

He blinks. _Sou-chan_?

No. He cannot afford to get distracted. Names are of no consequence he has more important things to worry about. “I have an inquiry.”

Nagisa laughs, making Sousuke blink. He’s never heard another cyborg laugh before. He hadn’t thought it was possible. This model is certainly the strangest one he’s ever come across. “Of course you do, Sou-chan.”

Sousuke stares at him, and Nagisa schools his face into a more serious expression. “What would you like to ask me?”

Beating around the bush is a human trait. Cyborgs have no need to build to a question, and so Sousuke doesn’t. “Do you love Rei Ryugazaki?”

Nagisa tilts his head to the side. “Of course I do. Why would you ask that?”

So this strange cyborg can feel human emotions such as love, much in the same way it can laugh. That doesn’t mean Sousuke has the same ability. “What does it feel like?”

The smile returns to Nagisa’s face. “What does it feel like? It feels amazing! I used to be all serious and formal like you, but then I met Rei and it was amazing. At first it was scary, because I didn’t know what was happening. My heart would beat too quickly and I’d forget to breathe, but my computer chip couldn’t figure out what was wrong. So I started doing a lot of research into it to try and determine why I would only have these problems when I was around Rei.

“Everything said that those were feelings were love, but I didn’t believe in it. I mean, we’re not human even if we have parts that look like them, you know?

“So finally I just talked to Rei about it. I figured he was my programmer, so he would know what was wrong. But then he confessed to me and we’ve been together ever since…” Nagisa trails off, staring off into the distance at something Sousuke can’t see.

Eventually, he shakes his head and returns to the present. “But that doesn’t really answer your question, Sou-chan. Um…it feels like everything all at once. I’m happy he’s with me but scared that something will happen to him because of me and everything in between. Sometimes it feels like I’m floating around and other times it feels like I’m falling and can’t stop.”

“So it is possible for a cyborg to experience love?” Sousuke chokes out, voice barely above a whisper.

“Of course it is,” Nagisa insists, smiling happily. “Wait,” understanding dawns on the other’s face. “Are you in love with Rin-chan?”

Sousuke backs away from the bench. He’s heard enough. “Thank you for answering my inquiries, NH801165,” he says formally. He can feel the other’s knowing smile on his back as he flees up the stairs and back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rinthegreat_ao3) and [Tumblr](https://rinthegreat.tumblr.com/) to see what I'm working on and how to support me. :)


	7. Things That Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author returns from a long hiatus, and the hints of a real plot are finally revealed.  
> OR  
> The one where you meet some new characters and you'll probably recognize them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow that was a long hiatus. Remind me to never do a shipping week again. Too much typing; it burned me out. (Also it's con season so cosplay has taken priority over writing). Anyway, thanks to Haikyuu!! breaking my block, I'm back! :) This chapter wasn't edited nearly as thoroughly as usual since I'm so damn tired, but I wanted to get it up for you anyway, so if you notice anything glaring let me know. Hope you enjoy!

            By the time Sousuke wakes up the next day, it’s nearly noon.  He gets up and grabs some fruit sitting out on the counter before going downstairs to see if Rin is there.  The redhead is in the shop, working his finishing touches on his robot, with no one else in sight.  “Nagisa and Rei left before I got up,” the mechanic informs him, not looking up from what he’s doing.  “Your share is on the bench.”

            Sousuke looks over to where Nagisa had lay the night before and sees a generous stack of coins.  “I cannot accept that,” he tells Rin.  “I didn’t do anything.”

            “You helped calm Rei down which is a pretty impressive feat.  Besides I only gave you a third.”

            “A third?”  If this is a third of what they paid, then the full amount would pay their rent for the next month.  “What do you plan to do with the money?”

            “I dunno.  I was thinking of making us another steak dinner, but two this close to each other takes away the novelty.”  Rin steps away from his robot, grabbing a rag to wipe his hands off.  “What are you planning to do with yours?”

            “I believe this will pay for my share of the rent next month.”

            “What?  Rent?  Sousuke, I invited you to live with me.  You help pay for groceries and cook.  That’s your rent.  This is just bonus for going above and beyond.”

            “I cannot continue to accept your charity.”

            “Goddammit, Sousuke!”  Rin shouts, slamming his hands on the bench.  The sudden noise makes the cyborg jump, and he stays silent.  Rin looks angry.  “Why can’t you just –?!”  Rin cuts himself off, bringing his hands to his face.  His chest is heaving like he’s the one who ran here from Haru’s house, and it terrifies Sousuke.

            He stands there perfectly still, trying to calm his own heartrate as he waits to see what Rin has to say next.  When the mechanic finally brings his hands away from his face, Sousuke can see how pale his skin is.  He looks exhausted.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean…I didn’t sleep very well last night.  I’m sorry.”

            “Rin,” he says finally, “don’t apologize.  If you’re tired, you should sleep.  You can always take another day off to finish your robot.”

            The mechanic looks like he has something to say, but instead he closes his mouth and shakes his head.  “You’re right.  I can finish it another time.”  He steps backwards, sinking into the stool behind him.  Rin draws his fingers through his hair, gazing back at Sousuke.  “I woke up to a perfectly clean apartment,” the mechanic tells him slowly, “and Nagisa was in a better mood even than normal.”

            “That’s good to hear.”  The cyborg had already decided that he isn’t going to tell Rin what he and Nagisa talked about the night before.  His…feelings for Rin aren’t something the other needs to be burdened with.  His face, already impassive, remains completely neutral as he responds to Rin.

            “You slept in.  Do you feel rested?”

            “Yes, thank you,” Sousuke responds, maintaining the same emotionless expression. 

            Rin frowns at him as if he knows the cyborg is hiding something from him, but doesn’t ask anything.  “I’m overworking myself,” he says instead, slumping forward in his stool.  “It’s my day off and I’m still working.  How pathetic is that?”

            Sousuke finds that he doesn’t know what to say.  His first thought is to agree with the mechanic; he is working himself too hard, especially on his day off.  However the term pathetic doesn’t fit.  Rin can never be anything remotely resembling pathetic.  It’s impressive how much he cares about his work, how devoted he is to his side project.  It’s admirable how much the mechanic cares for others.

            “You don’t have to say anything, you know,” Rin snaps at him dryly.  “That’s what we humans call a rhetorical question.  Means we don’t expect a response.”  The mechanic pushes himself off his stool and brushes past Sousuke, heading toward the stairs.  “I’m going to take a nap.  Wake me up in time to head to Makoto’s for dinner.”

            The entire interchange confuses the cyborg, but he nods and backs away so the other can go back into their shared apartment.  He wonders if this is the end already; if Rin’s tired of sharing his home with a machine, or if he regrets hiring him as his assistant.  Sousuke decides not to interrupt the other’s sleep, instead going about cleaning up the entire shop, using this as his chance to mop the floors and scrub down the work benches.  It takes him the entire day, and soon enough it’s time for him to fetch Rin for dinner.

            Rin’s in a better mood when they go to the diner that evening, and the good mood carries into the next week.  The two of them work as they usually do; Sousuke assists Rin throughout the day, and they return to their normal schedule switching off who cooks in the evenings.  The topic of the programmer and the other cyborg isn’t brought up again, and there’s nothing except Sousuke’s perfect computer memory which contains evidence of Rin’s strange mood.

            The tarp covering Rin’s half complete robot doesn’t move the entire week, and Sousuke is forced to add that to his list of items to dust in the shop.  That isn’t brought up either, and soon Sousuke stops feeling as if Rin is in a better mood.  He is…uncomfortable around the mechanic.  Sousuke searches his databases to find if uncertainty and awkwardness often come along with the emotion of love, but the results are skewed.  It seems that emotions are dependent on the humans involved and the situation.

            He closes the file.  Sometimes research could be so unhelpful.

            It’s Rin’s turn to cook dinner that night, but when Sousuke heads back to their shared apartment after finishing his cleaning, he finds the other by the door, pulling on his boots.  “We’re going to Makoto’s tonight,” the mechanic informs him, not looking up from what he’s doing.

            It hasn’t been a full week, and tonight isn’t the night they usually go to Makoto’s, but Sousuke doesn’t argue.  He nods, going into the kitchen to wash his hands without bothering to take his shoes off.  Clean, he returns to their entryway to find Rin dragging his hands through his hair.  He looks back at the cyborg as he approaches, expression guarded, and unlocks the door, stepping out.  “Ok.”

            Makoto doesn’t look surprised to see them even though it’s not their usual night.  Sousuke looks around at the customers.  It’s the usual type of crowd he’s always seen while here.  He’s not sure what he expected.  “Haru’s with some customers,” Makoto informs them, leading them back to their usual booth.

            Sure enough, the artist is sitting there across from two men.  His face is the same expressionless mask the cyborg now knows is reserved for all but his closest of friends as he speaks with them about something the cyborg can’t catch from this distance.  As they approach, Sousuke notes that there are a few men seated at a nearby table, watching the exchange.

            “Don’t worry,” Makoto draws his attention.  The diner owner nods his head at the three Sousuke had just been staring at.  “They’re with the other two.  Just acting as body guards, most likely.”

            He barely has time to finish his explanation before Rin’s already changing paths to walk over to the three.  Sousuke makes a move to stop him, but jerks to a halt when he notices that Rin’s face has broken into a smile the other hasn’t seen for a week now.  “Tanaka,” he calls out as he approaches, and the bald man stands up and meets Rin’s fist halfway.

            _You bump it with your own, like this_.

            Sousuke mentally shakes himself back to reality, though the memory of Rin grinning at him can’t quite fade when the real thing is right in front of him, just out of his reach.  “Matsuoka!”  The other greets enthusiastically, drawing the attention of the other two.  One of them holds the appearance of a middle schooler whose parents let him experiment with hair coloring, but when he speaks, he has the voice of a man gone through puberty.  “Matsu!”  He shouts, bounding off his chair and revealing himself to be shorter even than Nagisa.

            The third stands up, almost as tall as Sousuke himself and joins them.  He has a scary face, hair pulled back into a bun, but when he smiles it doesn’t seem menacing.  “Hey Matsuoka,” he greets much calmer than the other two as Rin bumps his fist as well.

            “Who are they?”  Sousuke finds himself asking Makoto without thinking.  He almost punches himself for that.

            Makoto pauses a moment before answering.  “They were workers around the area.  Construction mostly, but their jobs were taken when the robots started to replace people in more dangerous jobs.  I hear now they work as store keepers for a nearby drug store.”  He doesn’t ask how they know Rin, but he doesn’t need to; Makoto’s been acting as a sort of social encyclopedia ever since Sousuke started living with Rin.  “They had a falling out with Rin back when he first became a mechanic.  Irritated with losing their jobs and all…but it’s hard to hate Rin for more than a few minutes.”

            That was certainly true.  Sousuke’s more surprised to find out there are people who could ever even hate Rin in the first place.

            He and Makoto leave the redhead to his friends and join Haru at the booth.  Makoto slides in next to the artist, but Sousuke stays on the end, hovering until the diner owner mouths at him to grab a chair and pull it over.

            One of the men is clearly in charge.  He’s speaking with Haru in a low voice, discussing payment of some kind.  Every now and then, he nods his head, his white hair bobbing as he agrees or argues with what the artist is saying.  But he’s not who draws Sousuke’s attention.

            The other man is unremarkable in almost every way, looking thoroughly average in his features and seated height.  Every way aside from one: half of his face, much like Nagisa’s, is chrome.  Another cyborg.  The Iwatobi district wasn’t supposed to have any cyborgs in the area, and yet this is the second other than him that Sousuke’s run into in the past few weeks.

            The other cyborg notices him staring and scowls at him.  “Take a picture; it’ll last longer,” he snaps.  It takes a moment for Sousuke to realize that the white haired male and Haru have stopped speaking and are both staring between him and the other cyborg.

            Sousuke calmly rolls up his sleeve and pulls down the fake skin on his arm, revealing his own metal underneath, and the irritated glares turn to shock.  He pulls the skin back up, patting it into place and rolls down his sleeve, grunting: “Designation SY914185, known as Sousuke.”

            “You can make skin like that?”  The white haired man has already turned back to Haru, excitedly.

            “Yes,” the artist replies, face still expressionless.  “No seam either.”

            The other cyborg seems to finally be over his shock as well and extends a hand to Sousuke.  “Designation DS12311768, known as Daichi.”

            “You can dye it to match Daichi’s skin color?”  The man asks Haru.

            So this must be another human protecting a cyborg.  He wonders what this relationship is.  Mechanic, programmer, creator maybe?  He pulls up his computer, scanning through the other’s file to try and find a match with the white haired man, but nothing comes up.  Other than sitting next to each other on the other side of the booth, they don’t seem to have a connection.  The other three workers speaking with Rin all appear to be human as well.  Since when have so many humans cared about the fate of a cyborg before?  The concept was beyond Sousuke’s comprehension (and that of his computer).

            “What?”  The question comes from Daichi, puzzling him.

            “What?”  He asks back in kind.

            “You’re frowning at me.”

            Sousuke uses his organic hand to reach up and touch his forehead.  Wrinkles.  So he is frowning.  “What’s your connection with him?”  He asks, nodding his head to the man next to the cyborg in the booth.

            “Suga?  He’s my best friend.”

            Sousuke watches as Suga’s face contorts a little at the comment before returning back to its earlier calm expression.  “Daichi, he…it was an accident I’m sure, but he took a fall and…I know this isn’t ideal, but he’s…”  The man trails off, clearly lost in his own thoughts until Haru interrupts him.

            “Come back tomorrow morning and I can get started.”  The two of them shake on it, and soon Daichi and his human are scooting out of the booth and going over to join their friends.  Rin’s still standing with them, smiling and listening to them chatter away.  The same pit of anger Sousuke felt towards Haru appears in his stomach, and Sousuke recognizes it this time as jealousy.

            He bumps fists with the other three as Daichi and Suga join them before waving and walking over towards their booth.  He doesn’t even look at Sousuke as he slides into the seat the other cyborg and his human had just vacated.  “I didn’t recognize that one.  How’d you find him?”

            Haru just shrugs.  “They found me.”

            Sousuke wants to tell him that that’s dangerous.  That if Haru lets random people who used to have grudges with Rin find him, then they might find out that Rin’s been helping cyborgs.  That the Samezuka Party could find him.  That Rin is in danger simply by sitting across the table from him.

            But he doesn’t.  Instead he sits there quietly while Rin changes the subject.  “So where is she?”  He directs to Makoto.

            “Not here yet.”  The diner owner is smiling, a hint of deviousness evident in his expression.

            Who is she?  He wants to ask but again, he stays silent.

            “Hey, you said she’d be here.  You know I don’t have money to just throw around on dinners Makoto, as much as I love your cheeseburgers…”

            Who is she?

            “She said she’d be here around this time.  Give her a chance, Rin.”

            “It’s because that worthless boyfriend of hers is making her late, I know it.”

            On the other side of the table, Sousuke hears Haru mutter something that sounds suspiciously like “complex”.

            _Who is she?_

            “Onii-chan!”

            Sousuke looks up from where he’d been mentally burning a hole in the table to see a girl bounding towards them.  She’s grinning from ear to ear, waving enthusiastically, and it takes a second for Sousuke to catch the resemblance.

            “Onii-chan!”  She repeats once she’s arrived at their booth, still smiling, though this time it’s aimed at Rin.

            “Oi, Gou, get here when you say you’re gonna get here,” Rin grumbles as the girl slides into the seat next to him.

            Sousuke has already figured out who she is, but Makoto leans in anyway and whispers “that’s Rin’s sister” in his ear.  He simply nods.

            She takes off her purse tossing it next to her in the booth as she relaxes next to Rin, and despite their physical closeness, Sousuke doesn’t feel even a hint of anger towards her.  It must be because she’s family.  “Sei’s locking up the bike,” she announces to the table.

            Rin tuts, and Sousuke swears he sees a smirk on Haru’s face.  Makoto is still smiling that same devious smile as before.  “It will be good to see Mikoshiba again,” he says, causing Rin to tut louder.

            “I’ve told you a hundred times, you guys don’t need to be so formal with him.  You can call him Seijuro, you know.  He doesn’t mind.  He actually wanted me to tell you that so…”

            “I’m not calling him jack shit,” Rin grumbles.  His tone is surly, but somehow Sousuke knows that he’s not upset.  The knowledge causes his lips to turn upward just slightly.

            Rin’s sister finally notices him sitting there and peers at him curiously.  “Who are you?”

            “Oh how rude of us,” the smile on Makoto’s face finally returns to its normal state, “Rin do you want to introduce him?  He is your assistant after all.”

            “Onii-chan, you got an assistant and didn’t tell me?”  Gou pouts, and Sousuke can’t help but let his small smile grow.  She’s so cute.  Like Rin, but a little different.

            He saves Rin from having to answer and extends his hand as is proper for humans.  “I’m Sousuke.  I’ve been working in Rin’s shop as his assistant for a short time.”  Something tells him that revealing himself as a cyborg won’t work in his favor, so instead he concentrates not to squeeze her small hand in his secretly mechanical one and almost breathes a sigh of relief when no sign of pain appears on her face.

            “Sousuke?”  She asks, head tilted to the side.  “Like Sou-kun?  Rin?”  She turns back to her brother, and Sousuke frowns at that.  What does she mean?

            “No, Gou,” Rin tells her, sighing in exasperation.  “Not like your imaginary childhood friend.”

            “He wasn’t imaginary!  And he was _your_ –!”

            “Am I interrupting something?”

            The fight dies out immediately as Gou turns to the newcomer, smiling and pushing Rin to move over and give him room.  He’s a taller man, red-orange hair, and looks pleasant enough.  He introduces himself to Sousuke as “Seijuro Mikoshiba, nice to meet you.”  Sousuke shakes his hand as well.

            Rin looks positively murderous.

            “Wow it’s been so long since I’ve been here,” Seijuro remarks, looking around the diner.  “It looks exactly the same.  Nice job, Tachibana.”

            “You can just call me Makoto.”

            “Great!  Then call me Seijuro!”  The man beams at Makoto as their burgers are brought out without any of them ordering.

            Gou and Seijuro spend the meal alternating between eating and talking about their adventures elsewhere in the metropolis.  The scowl on Rin’s face seems permanently attached, but Sousuke watches as he wipes off Gou’s face and cleans up her spills throughout the meal with constant, gentle attention.  Something about those simple actions warm Sousuke from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head, and he finds himself watching the redhead throughout the entire meal.

            “How long are you here?”  Rin asks as the meal draws to a close and they all are reaching into their pockets for their wallets.

            “Just a few days.  Are you working tomorrow?  Can we do something?”

            Sousuke knows Rin’s schedule like the back of his hand.  Better even.  So he knows that tomorrow is absolutely not a day the redhead normally takes off.  “Yeah I’m off.”

            “Tomorrow then!”  Gou exclaims, letting her boyfriend pull her out of the booth.  “Mako, Haru, it was great seeing you guys too.  Let’s do it again sometime, ok?”  She waves and a moment later, she’s gone.

            A snort comes from the other side of the table, and they all turn to look at Haru.  “You have such a sister complex,” he explains, smirking.  Rin smacks him with a napkin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you haven't caught it yet, this is a partial crossover with Haikyuu. I say partial, because I'm just using them as side characters and stuff. Free has a distinct lack of characters in comparison to some of the numbers I needed, so I figured instead of creating shitty OCs I would just steal from my second favorite sports anime. Haikyuu! Characters in order of appearance:  
> Ushijima Wakatoshi (previous chapter)  
> Ryunosuke Tanaka  
> Yuu Nishinoya  
> Asahi Azumane  
> Koushi Sugawara  
> Daichi Sawamura


	8. Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin spends the day with his sister, leaving Sousuke in charge of the shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the late update. The summer got busy and I haven't opened my computer in months (and when I first could it took me a while to figure out how I wanted this chapter to go). I'm working on rearranging my schedule, so my update schedule will also change. I'm thinking of aiming for every other Sunday, but we'll see. Thank you for your patience.

            Rin is up at the same time as usual the next day, cooking breakfast for the two of them by the time Sousuke walks out of his room.  He sits down in time for the mechanic to shut off the stove and serve the food into two bowls; Rin doesn’t even look surprised to see Sousuke sitting there waiting for him.

            “Gou won’t be up for a while, so I figured I’d get some work done before she showed up,” the redhead tells him before taking a bite.  It’s rice and eggs again today.  A simple meal but still one with more flavor than those burgers Rin seems to love so much.  “I’ll leave the shop open so people can leave things with you, and I’ll get to them tomorrow if that’s alright,” Rin continues.

            “Yes,” Sousuke responds after a bite of the food.  “I am under your employment.”

            There’s a slight tightening to Rin’s lips at that but he doesn’t respond further than an aborted nod.  They finish the rest of the meal in relative silence, and when both bowls are empty, Rin gathers them up and put them in the sink.  “I will wash the dishes,” Sousuke tells him, standing.  He doesn’t walk over to the kitchen, though, not wanting to crowd Rin.  The kitchen is small, after all.

            “Yeah, alright,” Rin agrees.  He disappears down to the shop moments later, leaving Sousuke alone.  The cyborg immediately cleans up the dishes, making short work of the menial task, before he heads downstairs as well.

            Rin is bent over a machine Sousuke hadn’t noticed the night before, but the customer is nowhere in sight.  They must’ve come early to drop this one off.  The redhead is already so focused on his work that he doesn’t look up when Sousuke comes down.  Instead he reaches out his hand and says simply, “quad.”  Sousuke opens the drawer where the tools are and pulls out the quad, walking over to Rin and handing it over.

            He has all day to clean the shop, so instead he takes a few steps back and watches the mechanic as he works.  Rin is as methodical and efficient as ever, and Sousuke notices a small smear of grease already evident on the back of the mechanic’s neck.  For a moment, the cyborg considers reaching forward and cleaning it off, but the risk of distracting Rin from his work is too great.  Instead, he clenches his hands into fists at his sides and continues to watch unmoving.

            Sousuke still hasn’t fully come to terms with the way his pulse noticeably quickens and the way his one organic palm sweats against his fingers when he looks at Rin.  Love.  It’s still so…human.  He’s fine with being a cyborg, really he is.  He’s never once wished to be fully robotic or fully organic.  But right now standing in a dimly lit workshop, watching a robot mechanic fix up some household machine, Sousuke wonders if being human would make this easier.  If being human would help him accept the feelings he has for Rin.

            If maybe then he could act on them.

            Because if there’s one thing Sousuke knows about this, and he doesn’t know much about this, he knows that he can’t do anything about it.  He can’t tell Rin, and he can’t act on his emotions.  What he needs to do is purge them from his…heart?  Is the heart where feelings come from?  The cyborg does a quick search using his chip.  Brain.  He needs to purge this emotions from his brain.

            Something deep in his gut recoils at the thought.  He doesn’t _want_ to give these feelings up, and that thought startles him to the point he physically twitches.  The twitch brings him back to the present, and he looks up just in time to see a shadow appear in the doorway.

            “Onii-san, are you ready?”  Gou bounds in, grin evident on her face. 

            The sound alerts Rin to her presence, and he jerks upright.  “Gou, you’re here.”

            “Well, I remember you saying we were gonna spend the day together.  Unless you forgot…”  The pout from the night before makes a smaller appearance.

            Rin pushes away from the table, wiping his forehead with his dirty rag.  The perspiration which had been present there earlier disappeared, leaving Sousuke’s throat dry.  “Course I remembered, Gou.  I just didn’t think you’d be up already.”

            She laughs.  “I wake up earlier now, Onii-san.  I have a job, remember?”

            “Yeah, yeah, you’re a grown woman now.  I get it.”  He tosses the rag down next to his tools and the now-abandoned machine.  “If you’re ready to go then let’s head out.  Sousuke, watch the shop, ok?”

            The cyborg recognizes that he doesn’t need to respond, but even if he did it’s too late; Rin’s already walking away.  Gou shoots Sousuke a look which his chip registers as suspicious before following her brother out and away, leaving him alone in the shop.

            It’s strange, working in the shop without Rin.  People filter in and out, leaving their robots and a brief description of what’s wrong with it.  Sousuke opens a file in his chip and orders the objects by importance, lining them up according to the order in the real world.  In between, he sweeps the floor and imagines Rin’s voice in his head calling out different tools for him to grab.  The shop has never been cleaner.

            The day is nearly over, and Sousuke is ready to close, when another shadow appears in the doorway.  He looks up and blinks in surprise at recognizing the man there.  It’s Gou’s boyfriend, Seijuro Mikoshiba.  Sousuke straightens and sets down the tool he’d been cleaning.  “Rin and his sister are not back yet.”  He may have met her the night before, but Sousuke doesn’t yet have permission to call her by her first name.

            The man tilts his head to the side, his look unreadable, as he remains leaning against the door frame.  Sousuke doesn’t like the way he’s being stared at, but this man is sort of a friend of Rin’s, so he shouldn’t be impolite.  “You may come in and wait,” he allows, turning around to grab his rag and continue cleaning.

            There’s a dull thud, and the room gets dimmer.  He turns and sees that Seijuro has walked into the room and the front door is closed.  Sousuke’s eyes narrow, his chip already identifying exits and potential weapons in the event this turns into a confrontation.  The likelihood of that increases with each step Seijuro takes towards him.

            “Rin and Gou aren’t back yet,” he says again, dropping all hints of politeness from his voice.

            Seijuro stops his approach, crossing his arms over his chest.  “Yeah, I know.  I’m actually here to talk to you.”

            Sousuke stays quiet but steps to the side, picking up the hexdriver which was next on his list of items to clean.  He holds it loosely at his side, obscuring it from the human’s vision using the worktable next to him.

            “Stay away from Rin,” Seijuro says simply, no preamble to his words.  Sousuke frowns, confused.

            “I’m his assistant.”

            The man tuts.  “Look, _Sousuke_ ,” the cyborg’s hand clenches around the handle of the hexdriver at the tone, “I used to live in Sano.  Your type might not be able to tell the difference between us _humans_ , but I recognize you.”  And there it is, the clear distain in the way Seijuro spits his words.  He knows.  He _knows_.

            The human approaches him again, stopping just on the other side of the workbench.  He leans forward, eyes narrow, and pokes Sousuke in the chest.  The cyborg manages to conceal his twitch, but his knuckles whiten around the hexdriver in his head.  The alarms in his head are screaming that this is a dangerous situation, but some other part of his brain tells him to stay still and not risk destroying the source of Rin’s livelihood.

            “If anything happens to Gou because of what you are, I’ll hunt you down and kill you myself.  Got it?”

            There’s nothing obvious about Seijuro that poses a physical threat to Sousuke; the cyborg is sure he could overpower him if necessary.  But there’s a dangerous aura surrounding the man and something cold and dark in his eyes.  Sousuke takes a note to research him later; the man has clearly seen some hard times.  “Understood,” he replies in as cool of a tone as he has.  He forces his hand to relax its death grip.  “Anything else I can help you with?”

            Seijuro straightens up and steps back a step, contempt clear on his face.  It’s a look that Sousuke had grown accustomed to in his last few months working in the Sano department.  One he thought he’d never have to see again.  “Fucking machines,” Seijuro practically spits.  “Un-fucking-believable.”

            He backs away towards the door again, and Sousuke thinks for a moment that he’s going to say something else.  But then Seijuro just clicks his mouth shut and shakes his head, like whatever he was planning to say isn’t worth it.  He reaches the door at the same time that it opens, and steps out of the way as two laughing redheads step in.  Despite the last few moments of tension, Sousuke feels himself relax at the sight of Rin again.

            The mechanic in question notices him standing stiffly first.  His eyes meet Sousuke’s, and his mouth opens in question, but he’s interrupted by his sister.  “Sei!  What are you doing here?”

            All animosity from before disappears from Seijuro as he steps forward with an easy smile and a lie on his lips.  “I was waiting for you, obviously.  Wanted to see if you were up for going back to the diner for dinner.”  He turns slightly to Rin.  “You’re invited, of course.”

            “Oh yes, Rin you should come.  Sousuke too,” Gou grins at her brother.

            Sousuke’s stomach clenches uncomfortably.  He doesn’t want to go back to the diner tonight, especially not with Seijuro there.  He wants a night together with just the two of them.  He tells himself it’s just because he doesn’t want to be around someone who so obviously hates cyborgs, but he knows there’s more than that.  “Ah, sorry,” Rin speaks up, “but I have plans for tonight and work to catch up on.”

            “You work too hard, Onii-chan.”  Gou complains.

            Rin chuckles and ruffles her hair.  “Yes, but that’s what you love about me.”

            “We should probably get out of your hair then,” Seijuro steps forward and takes her hand far more tenderly than he’d shoved his finger into Sousuke’s chest earlier.  “Come on Gou.”

            Rin gets that same glare on his face as he had the day before, but he doesn’t stop Seijuro from leaving and taking and excited Gou with him.  Instead he just closes the door behind them and shakes his head.  “I’ll never know what she sees in that guy,” he mutters.  Sousuke doesn’t react to it, not sure if the comment was meant for him. 

            He finally turns around and looks at the cyborg again.  A frown settles onto Rin’s forehead, and Sousuke’s mind gets distracted thinking about all the ways he could smooth those lines out.  “Are you ok?”

            The question is directed towards him, after all there’s no one else in the room, but Sousuke doesn’t quite know how to answer it.  No, in all truth, he’s not ok.  He was just threatened for putting Gou at risk by being around Rin, and there was nothing he could do to refute Seijuro’s claims.  He _is_ putting Gou at risk, but more importantly, his presence is putting _Rin_ at risk.  As much as he’d like to eliminate all his feelings for the mechanic, he can’t.  Not yet anyway.

            “Hey.  Are you ok?”  Rin asks the question again, and Sousuke has to shake his head clear to bring himself back to the present.  Rin is so _close_.  Too close.  Sousuke can count the number of eyelashes on each eye.  “Sousuke, can you hear me?”

            “Yes.  Yes, everything’s alright.”  Sousuke smooths his voice out so it doesn’t sound any different than normal.

            He can tell from the look Rin’s giving him that the human doesn’t buy it.  The mechanic gives him one long look before letting out a sigh.  “If you say so.”  He steps back.

            Sousuke acts without thinking.  His hand shoots out and grabs Rin’s arm before he can get too far, letting the hexdriver from before clatter to the ground.  Rin freezes and looks back at him.  Sousuke is positive the stricken look on the mechanics face is mirrored in his own.  “I’m sorry,” he whispers, dropping Rin’s arm like it’s on fire.  “I don’t know what got into me.”  But he does.  He didn’t want Rin to get to far from him and his body just…reacted.  He doesn’t know if he can trust himself anymore.

            He needs to change the subject, needs to get himself back on track.  “I organized all the incoming requests in order of importance,” Sousuke explains, stepping to the side more smoothly.  “Starting here – “

            This time he’s the one who’s stopped by Rin’s hand.  It’s resting lightly on Sousuke’s robotic arm, but the weight is enough.  It’s in contrast to the vice-like grip he knows he had on Rin’s arm earlier.  “I think I can figure it out.  Just…go upstairs and lay down or something.”

            Sousuke’s stomach drops.  Rin isn’t looking at him, his face turned down towards the ground.  He let Rin down.  He let his feelings get in the way, and now he’s become a liability, he just knows it.  He nods, and though the other isn’t looking up, he still drops his hand.  Sousuke misses the contact, but this time he doesn’t act on it.  Instead he just turns away and heads up the stairs.  He gives one last look down at Rin, but the mechanic hasn’t moved.

            He sits on the sofa for a while, head in his hands.  Everything had been going well, hadn’t it?  They were working smoothly together in the shop and his disguise had been working…until today anyway.  But Rin doesn’t know about that…does he?

            Sousuke stays there, lost in his thoughts, until the door finally opens.  He stands up.  “Rin, I am sor- Rei?”  The programmer is removing his shoes when Sousuke speaks to him.  He straightens up and adjusts his glasses.  He looks far more put together than when they’d first met.

            “Yes.  Rin called.”  Rei speaks matter-of-factly.  He walks over and sets his briefcase down on the table, opening it with a click as he sits down on the floor across from Sousuke.  “Have a seat.”

            Sousuke does as instructed.  Rei pulls a wire from the suitcase and hands it to Sousuke.  “I’m going to take a look through your programming.  Plug yourself in please.”  His fingers move inside the briefcase, a slight clicking revealing it as a computer.  The cyborg takes the cord and plugs it into the port just behind his right ear.  His files pull up instantly as Rei takes control, flipping through them.

            “How is NH801165?”  He assumes all is well, based on the calm demeanor of the programmer, but he can’t be sure.

            Rei pauses in his movements just long enough to adjust his glasses.  “Nagisa is well.  He is with the artist Haruka Nanase getting his so-called flesh made like yours.”

            Sousuke is a little surprised to find that he’s happy to hear that.  Genuinely happy.  “That’s…good.”

            Rei continues flipping through his files at a near lightning fast pace.  Sousuke isn’t even sure what he’s looking for, but he’s content to sit back and let the programmer do what he does best.  “He told me about the conversation you had.”  Sousuke stiffens.  “Not to worry, it’s nothing I mentioned to Rin.  Confessions like that should be made by the person who feels them, not by some acquaintance who happens to be privy to the information.”

            Sousuke isn’t sure the confession should be made at all, but now is not the time to mention it.  “Thank you.”

            The files pause on one, and the vision in his eye pauses as it’s debugged.  It’s a feeling Sousuke will never quite come to terms to.  “Rin is worried about you.  He mentioned that you’ve been acting strange since the night Nagisa and I were here, especially today.”

            Sousuke considers telling Rei about the threat from Seijuro.  He’s almost certain the programmer would understand.  But he’s also certain the programmer would tell Rin, which is precisely what he’s trying to avoid.

            The program runs green, and Rei starts flying through files again.  “He wants me to check and make sure the hardware he made you isn’t causing compatibility issues with your present software.  I don’t see any issues, but I can make a few things run faster for you if you’re ok having your system reboot afterwards.

            Sousuke nods his consent, and Rei gets to work.  He edits the files and uploads them onto Sousuke, each containing an alert that he’ll need to reboot in order for the changes to take effect.  It takes half the time as it had with his previous programmer, a luxury he’s used to now because of Rin, and soon enough Sousuke’s allowed to unplug himself.  He pauses, hand on the cord.  “Sousuke?”  Rei asks, frowning over his glasses at the cyborg.  “Is everything alright?”

            This is his chance, Sousuke thinks.  “Where’s Rin?”

            “Downstairs.  He said he would catch up on some work down there while I fixed you up, up here.”

            Sousuke lets go of the plug, leaving it connected as he sits up straight and stares directly into Rei’s eyes.  “I want you to eliminate my feelings for Rin.”


	9. Not A Robot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nagisa returns with his new skin. Things happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. This chapter was a bitch to write and edit for some reason, but I'm finally happy enough with it to post.

            Rin appears a minute after Rei leaves, taking his laptop and cable with him.  Sousuke hears the mechanic walk in and close the door but doesn’t turn from where he’s standing by the window.  There’s a beat before he hears Rin kick off his boots and head into the kitchen.  Sousuke’s pre-prepared food is still sitting out; he’d almost forgotten about that.  He hopes it hasn’t gone bad.

            Either Rin doesn’t think it has or he doesn’t care, because Sousuke hears the tell-tale signs of the stove being turned on.  He closes his eyes, letting the sound drift into the background as his thoughts take control.

            _“I’m sorry Sousuke, but feelings don’t work that way.  They’re a part of who you are, and even a programmer can’t delete emotions from a living creature.”_

            Even now, just thinking about it, he’s filled with a sort of shame.  Shame over asking the impossible, despite knowing it’s part of his organic self and not something the programmer could fix.  Shame over admitting his feelings to Rei in the first place.  Shame over the look in his eyes when he’d told Sousuke what he was asking was impossible.  But mostly it’s shame for feeling the way he did. 

            The way he does.

            “Sousuke?”  Rin’s voice comes from closer than he expects, and Sousuke has to control his urge to jump away.  Instead, he turns and calmly faces the mechanic.  “I…uh…”  Rin struggles, clearly at a loss for what to ask.  “Did everything go well with Rei?”  He asks finally.

            There isn’t a good answer for that one.  His processor is running faster, the programmer had upgraded and updated all of his code.  But his heart’s still beating at an accelerated rate, and he swears it skips a beat when a few stray hairs fall over Rin’s forehead.  Emotionally, nothing’s different from when they were down in the workshop.  No, that’s not quite true; he’s worse off emotionally now that he knows there’s nothing even a programmer can do to change the way he feels about Rin.

            “My processor is running nearly 1.5 times the speed it was before,” he answers finally.  It’s not the question Rin asked, he knows that.  He wonders if he would’ve noticed the nuance a year earlier.

            “Ah,” the other steps back, his head half turned to the kitchen.  “Was it running slow before?”

            Sousuke checks the stove using his robotic eye.  The temperature he’s measuring the water at is accurate to .01 degrees.  It hasn’t reached the boiling point yet, but the food is already cooking.  Good.  “No.  He optimized my code and updated all my drivers.  My hardware is now running more smoothly and efficiently than it has in the past.”

            “Ah…”  Rin still isn’t looking back at him, and that bothers Sousuke for reasons he _really_ doesn’t want to think about.  “Uh, Sousuke.  If something were honestly wrong with you, you’d tell me, right?”

            Sousuke considers it a moment before answering.  “I will inform you if anything happens to me which puts me out of commission to work for you or help with the cooking and cleaning.”

            It’s not the answer Rin’s looking for; he can tell when the mechanic’s expression changes from concern to anger.  “Fine,” the redhead turns and walks back to the kitchen.  “Forget I said anything.”

            They eat in a tense silence, and Rin disappears back into the shop once they finish.  There’s a twinge in Sousuke’s chest on the left side that he ignores as he cleans.  His feelings for Rin are a problem, and if he can’t eliminate them then the least he can do is ignore them.  At least…at least he’s getting some distance from Rin.

            A few days later, they have dinner at the diner with Rei and Nagisa to celebrate Nagisa’s “skin” being completed.  Makoto meets them when they arrive and takes them to the booth near the back.  Nagisa and Rei are already sitting there when they arrive, and Sousuke notes that Nagisa’s “skin” looks just as real as his own, despite covering a portion of his face.  He’s grinning ear to ear when they approach and bounds up just as Sousuke sits down, throwing his arm around Makoto.

            “Mako-chan!  Your boyfriend is really something isn’t he?  Look at how great my skin is now!  You should be proud to have someone so talented!”

            “Ah, yes, that must be nice,” Rin mutters sarcastically as he slides into the booth next to Sousuke.  He’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed that Rin didn’t choose the other side.

            “Rin just doesn’t want to admit I’m good at something,” Haru remarks, looking pointedly in the opposite direction.

            “Hey!  What’s that supposed to mean?”

            The artist shrugs.  “Who knows.”

            “Makoto, your boyfriend is an ass.  I want it noted for public record.”  This is the first time Sousuke’s heard the redhead joke since the last time they were all together.  That knowledge just makes him feel even more out of place.  He shifts awkwardly in his seat, avoiding looking anywhere near the mechanic.

            Makoto’s cheeks flush.  “He’s not so bad…”

            “Aw no fair, Rei-chan!  I want to sit next to Sou-chan!”  Nagisa interrupts.

            “Calm down I’ll move and you can sit on the other side.”  Rin stands up, relief clear on his face. 

            There’s some reshuffling, and Sousuke winds up between Nagisa and Rei while Rin sits between Haru and Makoto on the other side.  It wouldn’t be so bad except now he’s directly across from the mechanic with no way out.

            The booth might be long enough to fit them all, but it’s not wide enough to keep his feet from brushing against Rin’s on the other side.  The two of them haven’t spoken or really looked at each other all week.  He would give almost anything for an excuse to get out of here.

            He avoids eye contact with the redhead as much as possible and listens as they all talk over him, trying not to get too annoyed as Nagisa and Rei lean over him to steal food from each other the entire time.  Despite the blonde being a cyborg, their easy comradery and clear affection draws up an envy so strong that Sousuke chokes down his meal much faster than normal.  The burger is still nothing to Rin’s meals, no matter how many times he eats one, but it has some familiar quality now though, and he finds that he doesn’t hate it as much as he used to.  That or it’s a safe escape from the perfect couples surrounding him.

            “I want to show Sou-chan all of my new skin,” Nagisa declares, tearing Sousuke from his thoughts.

            Rei blanches on the other side of him.  “Not here, Nagisa,” he hisses.

            “I know that!”  Nagisa grabs his hand.  “Sou-chan, come on, come on.”  Sousuke finds himself being drug away by the other cyborg.  The blonde leads him to the bathroom, not stopping until the door is closed behind them.  A quick sweep of the room returns no life signs, and Sousuke’s shoulders relax minutely.

            “I have seen your metallic portions already,” Sousuke reminds him.  As if either of them would need reminding of that blood-filled night.

            Nagisa takes another minute to scan the room, leaving Sousuke to wonder if he’d been given the same upgrades by the programmer.  “That’s not really why I brought you in here.”

            A feeling of foreboding settled itself in Sousuke’s stomach.  “What is it then?”

            “Have you told Rin-chan yet?”

            Oh.  Of course.  He hadn’t really expected the programmer to keep it secret, but he wasn’t quite expecting this level of confrontation.  “Told Rin what?”

            “Don’t play dumb, Sou-chan.  We’re both cyborgs, and I can tell your heartrate has increased by 20 beats per minute just from me asking that question.”

            “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”

            Nagisa snorts.  “Where else would we talk about it?”

            Silence.

            “I already know the answer.  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’  Right?”  But before Sousuke can confirm, Nagisa rants on.  “But we are going to talk about it, and we’re going to talk about it here.  I know you scanned the room for life forms already, so you can’t use the argument that there might be someone in here listening.”  The blonde cyborg has a point of course, but he’s right: Sousuke _doesn’t_ want to talk about it.  Not here, not now, preferably not ever.  That doesn’t seem to matter to Nagisa, however, who just continues.  “Out there, they’re cracking down harder on cyborgs, do you know that?”

            Sousuke shakes his head.  He’s been so caught up in his own problems he hasn’t really bothered to check the news.  It makes sense though; especially given the state Nagisa had been in when they’d first meet those few weeks ago.

            “Well they are.  You can look it up yourself, but the Samezuka party has gained power and nearly all the districts have outlawed use of cyborgs in the work force.”  Sousuke’s eyes widen slightly, a motion Nagisa clearly catches.  “That’s right.  Even if you wanted to leave Rin and find a new place to live and work, you can’t.  There are witch hunts going on with every new person who moves into a new district and applies for new jobs.  There was a student just last week while I was at Haru-chan’s who was lynched because he moved out of his parents’ house and started a new job as a construction worker.  He wasn’t even _remotely_ related to anyone who worked with cyborgs.”

            Sousuke took a second to double check the other’s words.  A quick internet search reveals the death of a Tobio Kageyama, covered up to appear as an accident on the construction site he worked at.  He closes the article, not wanting to see anymore.  “I didn’t realize it had gotten so bad.”

            “That’s because you’re in _love_ Sou-chan.  No, don’t interrupt.”  Sousuke closes his mouth.  “Rei told me about what happened.  You know he can’t do that, and even if he could, he wouldn’t.  Those feelings you have are _precious_.  Trust me.  You love him, and he clearly loves you.  You shouldn’t torture yourself like this.  Or him.”

            “Rin doesn’t love me.”

            The look Nagisa gives him is filled with pity.  “You really believe that, don’t you?”

            Sousuke turns away.  “Let’s go back.”

            He expects more of an argument from the other cyborg, but Nagisa just shoves him towards the door, usual smile replacing the expression from earlier.  “I have to use the restroom.  You go on ahead.”

            He squeezes back into the booth, bumping Rei’s shoulder with his own as he sits down.  The programmer is so deep in conversation with Haru that he doesn’t even seem to notice.  “Everything ok?”  Rin asks quietly, question punctuated with the smallest brush of his foot against Sousuke’s human leg.  Fireworks erupt from the spot, shooting up his body.

            Somehow he manages to find his voice.  “Yes.  Everything’s ok.”

            Rin’s brows are knit in worry, and Sousuke is once again struck with the knowledge that he hasn’t seen the mechanic smile all week.  It’s all his fault, he knows.  He trains his mouth into a semblance of a smile meant to reassure, one he’d seen on humans in the past.  To his surprise, Rin grimaces.  “What?”

            “Is that supposed to be a smile?”

            He resumes his mask.  “Was it not good enough?”

            “Uh…”  Rin seems at a loss for words, an expression on his face that Sousuke can’t decipher even with the help of his computer.

            Luckily, Makoto interrupts.  “I was thinking that, in celebration of Nagisa’s new skin, we could eat some cake.  It’s not Haru’s, but Sugawara made some special for us as thanks, and I thought we could share it…”

            Rei’s eyes soften next to him.  “Nagisa would like that very much.”

            The cake has about the same amount of flavor as the burger did, though it tastes better when Rin’s leg brushes up against his own again.  Sousuke only eats half his piece before pushing the other half at the blonde who grins widely at him.  He marvels at the ease of it and wonders if Nagisa ever had the same difficulty smiling that he does.

            They hang around longer than they usually do after dinner, congratulating Nagisa countless times on his new skin and complimenting Haru on its quality.  Sousuke doesn’t feel jealous that he didn’t get the same homecoming that the blonde has.  The other cyborg has been in their group for longer and besides, he had just wanted to get back and eat Rin’s food.  A burger and cake with people he hardly knows isn’t something he would’ve enjoyed as much.

            He and Rin are walking home silently together when Rin bumps his shoulder with his own, causing Sousuke to look over in surprise at him.  He’d been too lost in thoughts of his own homecoming, he hadn’t been paying attention.  “You’re smiling,” Rin answers his unasked question.

            The cyborg lifts his fingers to his lips, feeling them pulled tight over his teeth.  The last time he’d smiled had been the look on Rin’s face when he’d returned with his own new skin made by the artist.  Just thinking about it makes his grin widen.  “Yes,” he responds finally.  “I guess I am.”

            Rin smiles back tentatively, gracing Sousuke with that expression for the first time in a week.  “I’m glad,” the mechanic tells him, voice thick.  “I was worried about you.”

            Sousuke’s heart stutters through three beats before he feels the weight in his hand.  Rin isn’t looking at him, but Sousuke’s eye registers the red tint to his skin, the added heat, and the increase in the mechanic’s heart rate.  His own increases to match, and he closes his human hand around Rin’s, not wanting the other to change his mind and let go.

            The mechanic opens his mouth to say something, but his blush just increases and he closes his mouth.  Sousuke wants to say something, to tell him it’s ok or…he doesn’t even know.  But his throat seems to have swelled itself shut, and any semblance of real words have flown out of his brain already.

            Instead of saying anything, they walk in silence the rest of the way, and Sousuke thinks that maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t have to push these feelings away.  At least not now.  Not tonight.

            They reach the door to the shop all too soon, and Sousuke finds that he would rather just walk around a little longer than have to release Rin’s hand.  But the mechanic unlocks the door and pushes it open without releasing his grip on Sousuke.  He leads them over to one of his benches and stops, not dropping Sousuke’s hand.

            The silence grows awkward.  They aren’t walking anymore, and there’s no excuse Sousuke can think of to keep holding Rin’s hand, but his body is refusing to let it go.  The redhead hasn’t made a move to step away either, though, so it can’t be all bad.

            He loses track of how long they stand there.  Seconds, minutes, hours, he doesn’t know.  But time resumes itself with a loud bang as the door is forced open.  Sousuke jumps in shock, his movement mirrored by the mechanic, who finally drops his hand.

            There, panting in the doorway, is an enraged looking Seijuro.  His face is drenched with sweat, and Sousuke’s computer calculates that he must’ve run here.  He’s glaring straight at Sousuke as he pants, seemingly frozen in the doorway.  “Seijuro?”  Rin asks finally, breaking the spell.

            The man charges forward at a furious march.  At the last second, Sousuke realizes he’s going for Rin, not him.  Seijuro barely manages to grasp Rin by the collar with both his hands before the cyborg is on him.

            Sousuke’s mechanical hand flies out, narrowly missing Rin himself as he seizes the other man by the neck and throws him back three feet towards the still opened door.  Seijuro lies there still, but he’s not dead.  Not unconscious either.  For a wild minute, Sousuke thinks that he should’ve thrown the other man harder.

            The thought disappears as the other sits up slowly.  He’s pawing at his neck and gasping.  Sousuke feels a twitch behind him and lifts his hand up again, blocking Rin from getting around him.  Seijuro coughs a few times before regaining his breath enough to let out a hollow laugh.  It dissolves into a few more coughs but not enough to stop a twisted grimace from appearing on his lips.

            “It’s all your fault you know,” he rasps out finally.  “I told you this would happen.”  He struggles to a lunge, legs shaking with just that effort.

            Rin pushes Sousuke’s hand out of the way and takes a step forward.  The cyborg reaches out to grab his shoulder, but Rin pushes it away without even looking over at him.  “What do you mean this would happen?”

            Another hollow laugh comes from the other man as he finally pushes himself to his feet.  “Ask your _robot_.”

            Out of the corner of his eye, Sousuke spies the look of surprise on Rin’s face.  “Sousuke isn’t a robot.”

            “Whatever.”  It sounds more defeated than bitter.

            “What does he have to do with anything?”  Rin asks, stepping forward despite having been attacked earlier.  Sousuke stomps on the urge to stop him, knowing his cybernetic parts could get him past Rin in a second if Seijuro shows another sign of attack.

            At the moment though, the other man looks closer to breaking down than attacking again.  “She’s gone, Rin.  They’ve taken her.”

            It takes Sousuke a beat too long to piece together what those sentences mean.

            “What do you mean they’ve taken her?”  That, right there.  That sound of unadulterated fear in Rin’s tone is something Sousuke would do anything to never hear again.

            Seijuro really is crying now though, the tears mixing with the sweat and dirt on his cheeks.  “Gou.  They took Gou.  I don’t know what they want with her.  I don’t know why…she’s an angel why would anyone want to hurt her?”

            This time it’s Rin who rushes forward and grabs the other by his collar.  “What do you mean they took her?  Who took her?”  Even from where he’s standing, Sousuke can see Rin’s hands trembling.

            “Who do you think?  The Samezuka Gang.  They were never gone, Rin.  They must’ve known about your pet –“

            “Don’t fuck with me!”  Rin roars, his voice shaking despite the volume.  “Don’t pretend that you have nothing to do with this!  I know all about what you did before.  If this is anyone’s fault, it’s yours!”

            Seijuro braces his hands on Rin’s chest and pushes himself back.  Rin stumbles a few steps backwards as well, but Sousuke’s there to keep him upright.  “They killed my brother,” the redhead rasps.  “You can’t blame me for needing some vengeance.”  He stumbles backwards, grabbing the door to steady himself.  “I’m going to get her back, Rin.  With or without your help.”

            Just like that, he’s gone, slamming the door shut behind him.  Silence falls on them, though the awkwardly happy silence they’d had before is long gone, filled instead with a tense silence he could almost see.  It takes him a second to detect the soft sound of sobs coming from the mechanic in front of him.  The cyborg’s heart breaks at it, and he reaches forward to grasp the other’s shoulders.  They’re trembling.

            The touch is enough to break Rin out of his thoughts.  He shoves himself out of reach of the cyborg.  “I’m going after her.”  He chokes out.

            “No,” Sousuke is surprised to find his own voice is thick.

            Rin spins around, pain clear in his eyes.  “And who are you to stop me?!”  He pounds his fist into Sousuke’s chest once, twice, three times.  The cyborg doesn’t stop him.  This display of emotion isn’t something he understands.  His computer supplies the words _misplaced grief_ in the background, but Sousuke just ignores it.

            The redhead finally stops, clutching onto Sousuke’s shirt instead.  “Why aren’t you saying anything?”  Rin finally asks, staring at a point on Sousuke’s chest rather than up at the cyborg.

            Reasons flow through Sousuke’s brain.  _Because there’s nothing I can say.  Because Seijuro’s right; it is my fault.  Because…Because…Because…_   “Because I don’t want to make you cry,” is what comes out instead.

            All the fight goes out of Rin and he collapses forward against Sousuke’s chest.  The cyborg stands there, very still, as the mechanic sobs against his chest.  He raises his arms halfway to wrap them around the other but changes his mind and lowers them back to his side instead.  He lets the other cry until he’s done.  The redhead straightens up, hands loosening their grip on his shirt, and steps back.

            “I’m going to bed.” 

            Sousuke nods.  He resists the urge to physically help Rin up the stairs and into his bed and instead satisfies himself by following the other up and making sure he gets to his room safely.  Rin pauses just before opening his door.  “Thanks,” he whispers, not turning around.

            He’s inside, door closed, before Sousuke can find his voice to respond.  He hurries down and locks the door to the shop, taking special care so no one else can get in.  His thoughts are filled with Rin as he cleans up the benches and sweeps the floor for the night.  It’s his fault Gou was taken; he knows that no matter what Rin says or what Seijuro’s past might be.

            The only thing that matters, he thinks as he tidies the shelves in the shop, is to keep Rin here and safe.  Sister or not, he can’t take on the entire Gang or Party or both alone.  Especially with what Nagisa had told him earlier that day about the witch hunts and all.  Really, there’s only one good solution to this.  One ending that would keep everyone safe and get Rin’s sister back.

            Sousuke has to go save her himself. 


	10. The Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin disappears, Sousuke pursues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am...so sorry. I needed a break after nano&Christmas exchanges. I've been on and off working on this for months, and I'm still not super happy with it. I don't know what happened. Hope you enjoy despite that.

            Rin sleeps in later than normal the next day.  Not knowing the emotional state he’ll be in when he comes out of his room, Sousuke prepares breakfast for the two of them.  The mechanic comes out while he’s dishing out the first bowl.

            He shakes his head when Sousuke offers it to him, sinking down at the table wordlessly.  Sousuke leaves it there anyway.

            He sits across from Rin and eats his breakfast quietly.  It’s flavorless today.  Worse than Makoto’s burgers.  Worse than just sustenance.  After a few bites, Sousuke sets down his bowl and chopsticks and instead just stares at Rin.

            The mechanic doesn’t seem to notice that he’s being watched.  He doesn’t seem to notice much of anything.  His head is down, hair covering his expression.  If Sousuke had a hair tie, he’d pull it back to see what face Rin’s wearing right now.

            Nothing good, he decides.

            “You should eat something,” he ventures eventually, if only to see the reaction.

            Rin doesn’t even twitch.

            “Rin.”

            Suddenly, the mechanic’s head snaps up.  His eyes have lost the spark Sousuke’s grown used to seeing in them.  They’re colder, darker.  Sunk into his skull, emphasized by the dark circles under them which tell Sousuke he didn’t sleep the night before.

            Rin’s not looking at him.  His gaze is focused somewhere on the distance, something Sousuke can’t see.

            He scrambles to his feet, wobbling.  The cyborg shoots up, hesitating when Rin manages to gain his footing.  Rin doesn’t say anything, just stumbles towards the door.  Without thinking, Sousuke thrusts his hand out, clamping too hard on the mechanic’s bicep.

            Rin doesn’t even flinch.

            But he does look up.  Finally, finally, makes eye contact with Sousuke, his pupils struggling to contract.  “Don’t go,” Sousuke manages.

            Rin shakes at his arm weakly.

            “Don’t go where I can’t follow Rin.”

            The shaking gains in strength.

            “Rin.”

            “Let me go.”  His voice breaks as he speaks, coming out as more of a croak than a demand.

            Sousuke obeys.  “I will not let you go after her.”      

            The glare Rin gives him is lacking in venom, and eventually he stops trying, his body slumping into exhaustion again, shoulders hunched over themselves.  “I’m just getting some fresh air,” he mumbles, barely coherent.

            Sousuke’s eyes narrow, his cybernetic one searching for something, anything.  Anything that can tell him that Rin’s lying.

            Rin seems to sense that he’s not going to chase after him, because he shuffles his way over to the door and shoves his feet into his shoes.  The cyborg pinches the seam of his pants to keep from walking over and helping him.  “What about the store?”  His voice is surprisingly even.

            Rin shrugs.  “You’ve taken care of it alone before.”

            So that’s it then.  This shop, this place that Rin’s built practically from scratch, doesn’t mean anything to him anymore.  Not in the wake of his sister’s…kidnapping.  Sousuke’s hand clenches.  He’s going to get her back.  He’ll be damned if he doesn’t.

            He’ll do it just to get Rin back.

            Sousuke resists the urge to follow Rin out the door, help him down the stairs.  Resists it just long enough to hear the front door close behind the redhead.  Then he’s up.

            The food lays forgotten on the table.  Useless.  Tasteless. 

            Rin didn’t even try a bite.

            His shoes are on and he’s pounding down the stairs before he remembers he needs to stay quiet.  Needs to let Rin think he let him go.

            Sousuke crouches by the window as he pulls on his jacket.  He raises his head just enough for his eye to scan the area, see if Rin or anyone else has noticed him yet.  Coast clear, he stands and exits, making sure to lock the shop behind himself.

            For once, he wishes he had more clothes to choose from.  Rin’s seen this jacket enough.  He’ll recognize him with a single glance, if he thinks to look.

            Big if.

            Sousuke spots the redhead on the main street without a problem.  Rin’s wearing a baseball cap he keeps in the shop, pulled low over his face as if that will hide his bright hair from anyone at all.  Especially him.

            The mechanic looks both ways before crossing the street, not aware enough to ease Sousuke’s nerves.  He rips some mortar out of the building he’s standing next to when a motorbike zooms around Rin to take an illegal right turn.  Gods, if only he still had his job at the police station…

            There’s a muffled gasp, and Sousuke looks down to see the little pink haired boy from his first day at the shop staring at him in shock.  Realizing what he’d just done, he glances down at his hand, where the brick from the building had already been turned to dust.  He releases his death grip on it, letting it fall.  A piece of the skin Haru had made for him falls along with it, a glint of his metallic hand sparkling through.  Damn.  He’d lost control.

            When he looks up, Rin’s already turned the corner, disappeared in Sousuke’s brief lapse of judgement.  He growls and clenches his hand into a fist, covering the mistake as he takes off after Rin.  He can’t let the mechanic get too far; he still doesn’t know what Rin’s planning to do.

            It doesn’t take long to find Rin, luckily enough.  Sousuke barely rounds the corner and has to come to a complete stop to prevent drawing attention to himself.  The mechanic is walking slowly away from him, baseball hat still pulled low, head down.  The cyborg gets a few strange looks from passers-by, but Rin doesn’t even seem to notice, he’s so far gone.

            It just makes this all the worse.

            Sousuke pulls his collar up, blocking only his neck and chin from view, and follows Rin from a somewhat safe distance.  He’s followed people before; back when he was a police officer.  It was different then, there wasn’t a rush, a sense of fear like he has now.  Just the cool, calm sense that he was doing his job.

            If he’d met Rin before, following him like now, would he feel any different?

            Ahead of him, Rin pauses, raising his head, and Sousuke ducks into the nearest entryway, paranoid.  A lady walks out of the door and starts yelling at him for being in the way.  He apologizes, proper, so the people around them don’t think twice.  When he manages to escape her scolding, Rin’s disappeared again.

            He isn’t around the corner when Sousuke makes the turn.  The cyborg paces up and down the streets, but there’s no sign of the mechanic.

            He overloads.  Computer and biological brain both run at full speed, but one of them is going forwards and the other is backwards.  His body feels simultaneously too cold and too hot, and for a moment he thinks his mechanical parts are going to pop off and walk away, leaving him crippled and alone.

            Sousuke sinks down to a crouch, back against the nearest wall.  He clutches at his hair, pushing his palms into his eyes to cover the light.  Too bright.  Too much.  He can’t _think_.  The noise of the city is too loud, so his computer shuts it out, filtering down the noise that reaches his brain till all he can hear is his own breathing and heartrate.

            Too fast, both of them.

            He focuses on a singularity, easing all of his bodily functions back to normal.  The cyborg knows he probably looks insane on the outside; a grown man brought to the ground by nothing.  But that doesn’t matter.  All that matters is regaining control of himself and finding Rin.

            Purpose achieved, the computer portion of Sousuke’s brain kicks in and he stands back up, completely calm.  He ignores the strange looks he gets as he walks by, chip firmly in control.  It calculates Rin’s likely locations based on where he’d last been seen, the directions he’d be most likely to go in, and his top known speed.  Sousuke methodically traces the path, letting his computer update itself as he walks.  There’s a mental block currently holding back his panic, but it feels distant somehow, as if the fear belongs to someone else.  Someone human.

            After all, he’s nothing more than a machine.

            He’s working so methodically, that when the mechanic finally appears, Sousuke almost misses him completely.  When his brain finally processes what he’s seeing, the relief hits him so strongly that Sousuke temporarily goes blind, bright light filling his vision and obscuring everything else.

            Luckily his body moves automatically, following Rin before Sousuke can lose him again.  He keeps as low of a profile as he can, shoving his damaged hand into the pocket of his jacket.  He’ll need to get the artist to fix it as soon as he gets Rin back and safe in the shop.

            The mechanic ducks into an apartment building, the door swinging shut behind him.  Sousuke pauses and takes 3 breaths, deep and slow, before following him in.  His eye picks up the movement of the elevator, mind already reaching wirelessly for the control.  It’s headed for the eighteenth floor, only 2 from the top.

            He doesn’t even bother waiting for the next elevator; it’s too far and he’s already lost Rin too many times today.  Sousuke rips open the door to the stairs, the hinges creaking from disuse and takes the steps two at a time.

            His lungs are burning as he runs, but he doesn’t let himself stop.  It’s a race against the elevator, and he refuses to lose.

            Sousuke reaches the eighteenth floor in time with the ding, his ears catching it through the door even as spots dance before his eyes.  He hasn’t run that hard for that long since his academy training days.  And even then, it was never up steps like this.

            The door creaks when he opens it, like the one on the first floor did.  But when he peeks into the hall, Rin’s retreating back shows no signs of hearing him.  He props the door open with his foot, body still inside the stairwell as he catches his breath.

            Sousuke lets Rin walk a little further, to just where the hallway curves, before he steps out.

            Immediately, hands wrap around him from behind, tugging him back into the stairwell.  Sousuke struggles, but they cover his nose and mouth with a cloth, the stench of which his computer helpfully supplies as a narcotic.  It reacts quickly with his system, his eyes already growing dark as the door closes, Rin’s figure disappearing around the corner.

            His arm twitches as he struggles to reach out, his voice weak even as he calls the mechanic’s name, but then blackness consumes him and he crumples to the floor.

* * *

 

            When Sousuke comes to, it’s to the sight of unfamiliar carpet and a rope around his ankles.  Rope.  At least whoever it is doesn’t know what he is yet. 

            Sousuke clenches his hands, feeling a second rope flex around his wrists.  A deep breath in reveals a third before he finally looks up and takes stock of his surroundings.

            He’s in an unfamiliar apartment, far shabbier than Rin’s.  Judging by his internal clock, he was unconscious for less than 10 minutes.  His cybernetic side must have already kicked in and pushed the drug out of his system.

            He’s inside a small bedroom, door most likely locked or barred.  There’s a window behind him, leading out to the main street.  Over the hustle and bustle of the outside world, Sousuke can make out the sounds of conversation inside the apartment.

            Two men are speaking quietly, but he senses that there are at least two others.  Perhaps more.  “…Caught him following you since fourth,” the first one mumbles.  “Can’t be anything good.”

            “Look,” the second voice responds, and Sousuke’s unsurprised to discover it’s Seijuro’s.  “I highly doubt whoever that is followed Rin here because he knew what was going on.  Hell, I didn’t even know Rin was coming till he was at my door –“

            “It can’t be good.  I bet it’s one of the old guys, knowing what we’re up to –“

            “How could they?  I haven’t told anyone but Rin and you two!  Maybe you’re the one blabbing around to people!”

            “Enough.”  A third voice cuts in, another one Sousuke doesn’t recognize.  “You two are loud enough he’s probably already awake.  Let’s just go ask him.”

            Sousuke relaxes his muscles where they’d tensed at the sound of Rin’s name.  There’s a scraping – it had been blocked then – and the door opens.  The two unfamiliar men enter first followed by Seijuro and, to the cyborg’s surprise, he doesn’t acknowledge him.

            Rin’s the last one in, looking just as bad as when he’d left that morning.  He too doesn’t bother acknowledging Sousuke’s presence in the room.  The cyborg’s heart plummets somewhere near his stomach.  This isn’t good.

            “Who are you?”  The lighter haired man asks, still glaring at him.  He’s taller than the other man, taller than Rin, roughly the same height as Sousuke and Seijuro.

            But it’s the look on the other man’s face which registers in both Sousuke’s organic brain and inorganic microchip as being more dangerous.  He weighs his options before answering.  “Sousuke.”

            “Sousuke what?”  The taller man draws his attention back.  “Hey, I’m talking to you.”  He stalks over and shoves the cyborg’s shoulder.

            That’s what finally draws Rin out of his daze.  “Untie him.”

            “What?”

            Rin steps forward, expression still emotionless, eyes still not meeting Sousuke’s.  “This is my assistant,” he explains kneeling in front of the cyborg.  “I left him in charge of the shop while I was out.”  He doesn’t look up, just shoos away the other man with his hand before untying the rope.

            He’s meant to answer, a realization that comes a few seconds too late.  “I was concerned about letting you wander around alone.”  It’s not a lie at least.

            “So you stalked him here?”  The glaring man asks, disbelief in his tone.

            Rin tugs the rope away from his ankles and moves to the back, starting at the rope around his wrists.  “I followed him,” Sousuke confirms.

            Behind him he hears the smallest intake of breath.  Rin’s fingers run over the palm of his cybernetic hand, where the skin has been torn off.  He lingers there too long; Sousuke registers the strange look from Seijuro.  He twitches his fingers, jerking Rin out of his reverie.

            “So what do we do with him?”  The tall man asks, looking to the one Sousuke had registered as more dangerous.  Sousuke stands up slowly, shoving his hand in his pocket.

            “Nothing.  He’s leaving.”

            The cyborg looks sharply to Rin, who is pointedly ignoring him.  “Rin.”  But the mechanic doesn’t pay him any mind.

            “We have work to do, let’s go.”  The redhead turns, making to leave the room.

            Sousuke snaps.  “Rin!”

            His hand is no longer hidden in his pocket as he surges forward past three surprised faces to grab the mechanic’s shoulder and spin him around.  He’s too rough, he knows that.

            Rin stumbles back, eyes widening as his back slams into the wall behind him.  Emotion blooms across his face.  Finally.  Sousuke’s pulse is pounding in his ears, the stress from following Rin here finally bursting through his chest.  He can feel another attack coming on, like the one on the street.  He sucks in a breath, trying to will it away, when there’s a click behind him and a cold ring against the back of his head.

            He knows that sound all too well.

            “Back away from Rin.”  There’s no _or else_ tacked on; there doesn’t need to be.  Sousuke had been right to tag the shorter man as the dangerous one.  He doesn’t doubt that he’ll be shot if he doesn’t let go of Rin.

            But he can’t.

            His system’s going haywire, his hands shaking, his computer whirring, and he can’t release Rin.  Can’t meet his eyes either.

            “I said back off.”  The man’s voice drops in volume, somehow more threatening this way.

            “Iwaizumi, I can handle this.”  To Sousuke’s surprise, it’s Rin who speaks.  He lowers his head further, involuntarily, hair fully hiding Rin from his view.

            Something happens over his head, a silent conversation of some sort, because there’s another click of the weapon being disabled, and the metal ring disappears from the back of his head.  “You have five minutes,” the man, Iwaizumi, declares.  There’s a shuffling, discontent muttering from the other man and Seijuro, but then the door closes and he and Rin are alone in the room.

            Neither of them say anything for several moments.  Enough time for Sousuke’s body to return to his control.  He keeps his head lowered, a feeling he registers as shame flowing through him. 

            “Why did you follow me?”  Rin asks finally, breaking the silence.

            Sousuke weighs the choices in his mind, coming to an answer which doesn’t show him as emotionally compromised as he is.  “I was concerned about your wellbeing after the news.”

            “You were worried about me?”  The tone Rin uses, as if he hadn’t even considered the possibility, draws Sousuke’s head back up.

            They’re standing close.  Closer than he’d thought.  Their noses nearly brush as Sousuke looks up, and he can count the number of eyelashes Rin has on each eye.  A different kind of feeling overwhelms him at that, and he chokes on his answer.

            “Don’t go after her.”

            His words surprise even himself, and Rin shoves him away.  Sousuke steps back, the distance aiding his ability to speak.  “Let me do it instead.”

            Somehow, that shocks Rin even more.  “What?”

            He does a swift calculation, determining the others can’t hear him from outside if he speaks softly.  “You are human.  The chances of you returning intact are significantly lower than mine.”

            “Gou is my _sister_.  I’m not going to stand back and let anyone else save her.”

            “Rin –“

            “Besides,” Rin plows on over him, “you’re more likely to be killed than I am.  Given what you are.”

            Sousuke can’t argue with that.  “I’m coming with you.”

            “No.”

            “This is not a debate, Rin.”  They glare at each other, and even though the hope is all gone, Sousuke’s heart can’t help but leap at the sight of real emotion in Rin’s face.  Not just the blank mask he wore earlier.

            Rin gestures to his hand.  “What happened?”

            He clenches his fist, knuckles whitening.  “An accident.  Haru will fix it for me before we leave.”

            Rin shakes his head.  “People who are taken by the Samezuka gang disappear.  We can’t afford to wait.”

            Something cold freezes in Sousuke’s chest.  Rin was planning to leave without saying goodbye.  Any phantom hope he had that Rin felt similarly towards him disappeared.  He blinks once, twice, three times. 

            He stays frozen there too long, and their five minutes are up.  Sousuke’s computer alerts him just as there’s a sharp knock on the door.  The man Sousuke doesn’t know pokes his head in.  “Well?”

            The mechanic sighs, finally breaking eye contact.  “He’s coming with us.”

            The man raises his eyebrows.  “Your funeral.”  He vanishes into the other room, voice trailing behind him.  “Come on then, we have things to do.  You know how Iwa-chan gets.”

            Rin steps forward, right into Sousuke’s personal space, breathing the same air.  “Don’t make me regret this.”  And then he’s gone, disappearing into the other room, taking all the oxygen with him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haikyuu appearances:  
> Iwaizumi Hajime  
> Oikawa Tooru


	11. A Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sousuke learns more about the plan to infiltrate the Samezuka Party Headquarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Crawls up from writing grave*  
> *Looks at last date updated*  
> *Looks at today's date*  
> *Hides*
> 
> Ok please don't kill me guys...I know it's been over a year since I updated but I SWEAR I'm not dropping this fic. In fact, I am getting super near the ending, if you can't tell. I'd predict it for you, but last time I tried a prediction I was off by like...10 chapters. So if I say 2 chapters remaining, that probably means somewhere between 2 and 12 chapters remaining. (Seriously though it shouldn't be more than 5 I hope). I'm super shit at predicting chapter count, especially because I'm trying to keep the word counts within the same range. Anyway, I am REALLY REALLY sorry. Would you forgive me if you knew that the first 1000 words have been sitting, written for at least 6 months?
> 
> *Dodges tomatoes*
> 
> Ok guess not. Enjoy it anyway...I hope. <3

            Sousuke’s surprised to discover that they’d been planning this for a while.  Iwaizumi and Oikawa at least seemed to have been preparing to invade the Samezuka group’s headquarters already.  There are blueprints sitting out on the table when he walks in, and the two of them are discussing strategy over the head of a stunned Mikoshiba.  His eye zooms in, but a few seconds of searching results in the conclusion the man’s still in shock.

            “What’re we looking at here?”  Rin asks, leaning over the table, back to Sousuke.  The cyborg walks up, standing on the far side of Iwaizumi who isn’t hiding where his gun is.

            Oikawa is the one who responds, pointing at a section of the blueprint.  “This here is the old entrance.  They closed it up some time back, but I have it on good authority that it’s not as closed as they think it is.”  He moves his finger along a hallway.  “This is where the block actually is now, but…”

            Iwaizumi clicks a button, changing the blueprint to a different one.  “There’s a storeroom here.”  He finishes Oikawa’s thought, pointing at a room to the right of where Sousuke remembers the block being before.

            “So it’s a weak point.”  Rin speaks up, frowning.  Sousuke wonders if the frown will turn permanent.  He hopes not; the mechanic looks better when he smiles.

            Iwaizumi shakes his head.  “Not exactly.  More like it’s where they get their shipments.”

            “Shipments?”

            Oikawa turns off the blueprints with a click.  “Yeah, cyborgs.  They might be too legit to do the public demonstrations now, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a private group that enjoys watching.”

            Sousuke shifts, feeling Rin tense next to him.  He recalculates the odds, but even with this new knowledge there’s still a 40% chance he’ll make it out alive.  Rin only has 25%.

            “I know he’s your friend,” Oikawa continues, “but I was hoping you’d be able to convince that astronaut cyborg to help us out.  He won’t get hurt, we’ll put him to sleep instead of shutting him off –“

            “No.”  Seijuro finally speaks up, drawing all of their attention.  Sousuke’s hand clenches into a fist, not liking where this is going.  “No,” he repeats.  “We’re going to send in the cyborg who started this.”

            Oikawa frowns, face etched clearly with confusion.  “What?  What cyborg?  What are you –“

            Rin interrupts first.  “Don’t be an idiot, Seijuro.  You’re the reason Gou was taken in the first place.”

            “Gou?  What are –“ Oikawa tries to step in, but Seijuro steps forward.  Sousuke moves between them, not letting him near Rin again.

            “We can turn him in and they’ll give her back!”  He shouts, pointing at Sousuke.  He can feel Iwaizumi’s eyes burning a hole in his back.

            There’s silence until Rin breaks it.  His voice is cold, and Sousuke wishes he could turn around and see it.  He won’t turn his back on Seijuro though; not when Rin is here.  “We don’t know that.”

            “Care to fill us in, Rin?”  Iwaizumi’s the one who asks.  “I thought you were helping us prove that they’re still connected with the gang.”  Sousuke’s hackles raise.  This is why he shouldn’t have let Rin go on his own.  The Samezuka group is a threat enough, but even his allies are dangerous to him.

            Seijuro is the one who reveals it, before Rin even has the chance to answer.  “That’s a cyborg.  Rin’s been harboring it.”

            There’s an instant reaction to that, a crackle Sousuke can feel in the air.  Oikawa freezes where he is, Iwaizumi’s eyes harden.  Neither of them go for their weapons though.  Rin pushes past him, giving Sousuke nothing more than a glimpse of his cheek.

            “Sousuke is a person, same as you and I.  And I won’t let him be used to help us get in.”

            “Rin.”  Iwazumi’s eyes are steal, fixed on Sousuke’s face.  “This could be a tactical advantage.”  He pauses a moment.  “Or disadvantage.  We should’ve been told.”

            Oikawa nods.  “And what’s this about your sister?”

            “She was taken.  I aim to get her back.”  It’s impressive, his organic side notes, that after his near breakdown the day before, Rin is impassive.  Almost emotionless.

            A few things happen at once, his attention too focused on Rin for Sousuke to react until after the fact.  Seijuro draws a weapon, but Oikawa is fast, faster than the cyborg would’ve thought.  The gun is discarded, clattering across the floor, and the man is down on top of Seijuro, knee pressing to his neck.  The man can’t breathe, can’t move, pinned by the other’s body, weaponless.

            “Iwa-chan.”  Oikawa’s voice has a dark edge to it, and Sousuke reassesses the threat of each man.  Iwaizumi doesn’t need more prompting than that.  The ropes used before to restrain Sousuke are brought forward and in a moment, Seijuro is tied up and thrust into a corner.

            A declaration, wordless, comes from the screen, and Sousuke turns to where Oikawa is standing.  His own picture and record are up and showing for them all to see.  He wants to know Rin’s reaction to this, but the mechanic hasn’t moved, hasn’t flinched from where he stands.

            “SY914185.”  Oikawa reads out.  “You were a cop.”

            “Rin.”  Iwaizumi steps up, looking no more disheveled than before.  As if tying up Seijuro didn’t even make him wrinkle his pants.  Still the more dangerous one then.  “This is a disadvantage.  He’s a wanted criminal, ex-cop.”

            _That_ is something Sousuke hadn’t been expecting to hear.  “Wanted criminal?”  The question comes from Rin, finally moving.

            “Yes.  Wanted for crimes against the state and the party.  What did he do?”

            Sousuke wracks his brain, using the chip to search.  The internet says the same things; wanted for crimes against the state and Samezuka party.  Nothing more than that.  His own memories, organic or otherwise, have nothing to support their claims.  No crimes he can find.  “Rin…”  He starts, wanting to explain himself.  There’s something wrong with the records, something has been messed up, something…

            But the mechanic doesn’t even glance in his direction.  “Then we use another way in.  He can be disguised.”

            “He’s huge.”

            Iwaizumi taps his fingers, forehead crinkled in concentration as Oikawa and Rin argue about this.  Finally he looks to the taller man.  “We need backup.”

            Oikawa nods, exchanging no further words and steps out of the room.  Iwaizumi taps his finger on the screen impatiently, while Rin glares at the wall.  Neither of them are looking at Sousuke.  There’s a tension in the room, palpable, and if he says anything it might snap.  Intuition, his computer supplies, is what makes him think that.

            “Ok.  They’re on their way.”  Oikawa announces, returning with a deceptive smile on his face.  As if asking people to come help them invade a prominent political party’s headquarters is perfectly rational.  “A few others might join too.”

            He tosses the phone at Iwaizumi who catches it without a thought.  Sousuke does a belated search on the two of them, trying to figure out where they’re from, what their qualifications are, but he can’t find anything.  Not even a birth certificate.

            “If you’re searching us, you won’t find anything.”  Iwaizumi speaks, somehow managing to read his mind.  “We had our records purged long before the Gang became the Party.”

            Dangerous.  These people are dangerous, Sousuke notes not for the first time.  He looks around the room again, more calculating.  It is rundown, older than Rin’s apartment, but he can see now that it’s _meant_ to look that way.  The haphazard placement of things is too precise; this place is more than a hastily thrown together meeting place.  It’s a war room, a meeting area set up similar to the ones in the police station.

            “Rin, I need you to get him out of here,” the shorter man instructs, thumb gestured to Seijuro’s tied up form.

            Sousuke recoils.  “No.”  He demands firmly, stepping in front of Rin.  He chased the mechanic all the way here to make sure he was safe, he isn’t going to let all that work go to waste so Rin can run off and try to play hero alone.

            “Call off your guard dog, sheesh.”  Oikawa rolls his eyes, flopping down on a well-used couch.  He raises an eyebrow at Sousuke, eyes too knowing for someone he’d just met.

            Iwaizumi for his part looks between the two of them, eyes narrow.  “Go with him then.  We leave in 3 hours, I expect you back in 2.”

\---

            Sousuke keeps his mechanical hand wrapped around Seijuro’s arm the whole time.  He’s holding too tightly, he knows.  The man winces every time they change directions, but he doesn’t seem likely to start screaming, so for now it’s enough.  He’d wanted to carry the man, bound and gagged the whole way, but Rin had been the one to remind him they’d be more likely to be arrested that way.  So instead, they wander down side streets, the only line of defense the grasp Sousuke still has on him.

            They take him to Makoto’s diner, on Rin’s suggestion.  Sousuke shoves Seijuro at him once they get to the kitchen, and Rin stares at the stove while he tells Makoto to keep him tied up.  The brunet’s expression is one of clear confusion, no translation needed, but he does as he’s asked.

            After ensuring Seijuro is secure, they stop by the apartment, cleaning up the uneaten bowls of food from this morning.  Objectively, it was only a few hours ago, but to Sousuke it’s been much longer.  He scrapes off the last bit of egg, dumping it in the garbage.  For some reason he can’t understand, his heart falls in there with it.

            “Sousuke.”

            He jumps, not having heard Rin approach.  The cyborg feels out of control again when he turns around, a few pieces of rice still sticking to the inside of the bowl, but he doesn’t let go.  On the contrary, if he holds it any tighter it’ll shatter all over the floor.  He angles it so it’ll fall in the trash instead.

            “Don’t come back with me.”

            The bowl shatters, but not all the pieces make it into the trash.  Sousuke hears several scatter across the floor, and he files that away in his chip.  For now, though, he unclenches his fist and steps forward.

            For each step he takes forward, Rin takes on back, until the back of his knees hit the table behind him.  Sousuke grabs him before he can fall, pulling him upright.  The result brings them chest to chest, the mechanic’s eyes wide. 

            Sousuke’s chip short circuits.

            It’s quiet for a second, nothing but the sound of their breath between them.  “Sousuke, you’re scaring me.”

            He’s the one being scary?  Anger clouds his judgement, chip effectively offline, and he shakes Rin’s arm.  He wants to convey it, to tell the mechanic _you’re the one scaring me._   To say _I’m not letting you go out and wander around again without me_.  But instead all that comes out through gritted teeth is a low growl.  “No.”

            “Sousu–“

            “No!”  Red is playing at the edges of his vision now, same as the white from before.  He has so much more to say – _I’m coming or you’re not going_ – but he can’t manage anything except one word.  “No.”

            Rin doesn’t try to speak again, but his eyes are still wide; an expression Sousuke never wanted to put on his face.  He drops his own to Rin’s shoulder, hunching over the mechanic.  “No…”  It comes out weaker this time.

            He feels a rustle of movement between them, tenses a moment, but then a hand comes to rest on his back, between his shoulder blades.  “Ok,” he feels the mechanic’s breath rush past his ear.  “Ok.”  He says it again, more firmly this time.

            Sousuke raises his head and backs away, giving Rin space.  The redhead’s looking at him, expression unreadable.  Sousuke’s chip chooses now to resume functionality, searching for a meaning in Rin’s eyes.  It can’t find anything, of course.  There is no search engine for the mechanic’s unspoken words.

            “We should get back.”  It’s Rin who breaks the silence again.

            Sousuke calculates.  They still have nearly 30 minutes to get back – 29.34 actually – since taking the back way with Seijuro took longer than the distance warranted.  He doesn’t argue with Rin, not trusting himself.  This feels nothing like how Nagisa had described it; he feels more like he’ll die, as if the world will end without Rin, than he feels happy.  Right now he can’t imagine what happiness even feels like.

            They exchange no further words, locking up properly this time before slipping out and returning to the apartment with the others.  Sousuke checks to ensure they’re not being followed, but every twitch of Rin’s head, every glance from the corner of his eye that doesn’t have the shocking shade of red in it, brings his focus away.  By the time they arrive, he can only say with 62% certainty that they weren’t followed.  He knocks on the door he remembers from before, but neither Iwaizumi nor Oikawa answer.  Instead, it’s a woman with dark hair and glasses Sousuke can’t remember seeing before.

            Rin clearly recognizes her though.  “Kiyoko.”

            “Rin.”  Her lips tilt up slightly as she steps aside.  “And this must be…?”

            “Sousuke.  He’s coming with us.”  Rin answers before Sousuke can.  The two of them step past, Kiyoko staring at Sousuke as if she can unlock his secrets by sight alone.  She isn’t the only new addition to the room.  The place is buzzing with activity, people the cyborg has never seen before, dressing and gathering supplies that wouldn’t look out of place in a SWAT raid.

            Oikawa is the first to approach them, clapping Rin on the back in a way that has Sousuke’s alarm going off before he realizes who it is.  “I called in a favor~.”

            “A favor?”  Rin asks.  “Looks like you called in more than one.  Is this the whole damn squad?”

            Squad? 

           “I wish.  Just us still, though Shimizu’s made friends.”  He gestures to a cluster of women cleaning their guns.  “Turns out a few were in the People’s Army.  Got us some nice equipment upgrades.”  He gestures to the vest he has on.  Sure enough, when Sousuke’s eye zooms in he can see the outline of a peeled off decal reading People’s Army.

            Next to him, Rin frowns.  “Won’t they get kicked out if we’re caught?”

            “I said _were_ didn’t I?  They defected.  Joined the resistance not long ago, brought a hefty bit of lead with them.  You have your wanted criminal, now we have ours.”  He claps Rin on the back before walking away with a wave.  “Grab what you need, Captain~.”

            Captain? 

            “Rin?”  Sousuke asks, hand on the mechanic’s shoulder.  The redhead looks up at him, reading something in his expression.

            “Come on.  We need to grab something.  And we should find you some gloves too.”

            They go to one of the nearby piles, and Sousuke grabs a few of the weapons he was trained with along with a vest.  He checks a second one for defects before passing it to Rin.  The mechanic is holding the same gun options as he has, and his brain chooses to remember that Rin was once training to be a cop like him.

            “How do you know these people?”  He asks, but he thinks he might know.

            Rin gestures around.  Now that they’re inside, Sousuke can tell there are less people than he initially thought.  “Oikawa and Iwaizumi were in my same class in the police academy.  Kiyoko was assigned as our class mentor; she taught me to shoot.  Those two,” he points at two men with spiked hair sitting together counting ammo, “were in our rival school the same year.”

            “Captain?”

            “I was elected class captain the year we were supposed to graduate,” Rin’s looking down cleaning his weapon as he speaks, flush on the tips of his ears.

            The cyborg wishes, not for the first time, that there were some kind of mind reading function.  “But you didn’t graduate.”

            The mechanic shrugs, standing up and pulling on his vest, strapping what he needs to the front.  “No I didn’t.”

            Intuition tells him this is the end of that topic, so he changes back.  “Who are they?”  He points to the girls from earlier, now joined by Kiyoko.

            Rin shrugs.  “Never met them before.”

            Before Sousuke can ask any further questions, he’s interrupted by Oikawa addressing everyone.  “Ok I’m not much for pep talks –“

            “Bullshit!”  One of the girls, red haired though not as bright as Rin and Gou, shouts from where she sits.

            Oikawa blows her a kiss and flips her his middle finger at the same time.  Sousuke’s brain registers that as an insult, but the woman doesn’t appear offended.  “ _Anyway_ ,” he emphasizes, “this mission has 2 objectives…which is why we called all of you here in the first place.  Originally we just wanted to get some information that the Samezuka Party is still the same dirty Gang we all know and _love_ , but then we found out that our beloved captain’s sister was kidnapped by them.  So this is now a rescue mission as well.”  His voice, soft and teasing at the beginning, had grown harder through the speech until it turns low, serious.

            Sousuke notes the spiked men’s heads turn towards Rin before looking back at Oikawa.  “So now we have 2 goals.  One,” he ticks a finger up, “get the information we need.  Hard evidence that can be taken to court if necessary.  Two,” a second finger joins it, “save Rin’s sister.  We’ll split into two groups.  Remember, this is a stealth mission.”  For some reason he glares at the spiked haired boys.  “So don’t be stupid or I’ll sic Iwa-chan on you.”

            The speech is over, or at least seems to be.  But the white haired man has his hand raised.  “Oi, shit-face.”

            “So help me god, Bokuto, I will throw you off the roof.”

            “Grand King Oikawa, oh kind and gentle –“

            “Don’t give him a big head, you know he doesn’t need it.”  The man next to him elbows him, wide grin on his face.  Nothing about this situation is funny.  The cyborg’s face darkens; he already doesn’t trust these men.

            “ _What_ do you want to say?”  Even Oikawa appears exasperated.

            “Yeah, uh, this is great and all, but how are we getting in?”

            Across the room, his eyes lock with Sousuke’s.  “Oh we have the _perfect_ way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haikyuu Characters in order of appearance:  
> Kiyoko Shimizu  
> Koutarou Bokuto  
> Tetsurou Kuroo
> 
> Who are the three women? Yes there are 3 other than Shimizu. The fic was SERIOUSLY LACKING IN LADIES so I went ahead and added them.~ No they are not OCs.


	12. Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Samezuka Headquarters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That wasn't too long of a wait, right? Right?

            “Don’t do this.”  Rin’s standing in front of him, hands on his shoulders.  The cyborg looks away, unable to meet his eyes and the fingers tighten around him.  His robotic side registers the pressure on it but nothing more.

            With a group this large, Rin’s chances of survival go up, especially if they bring in Sousuke as a captive.  He went through the calculations three times, just to check, but the added numbers really had tilted the probability.  His organic side revolts, irrational emotion not wanting Rin out of his sight even for a _second_.  But numbers don’t lie, and he’ll take a 52% chance over a 34% one.

            The likelihood of getting Gou out decreases with him unconscious, but he doesn’t say anything about that.

            “Sousuke, we can find another way.”  The mechanic urges, unmoving.

            The cyborg can sense the others out of the corner of his vision.  They’re moving around, last second preparations, giving him and Rin space.  They don’t matter, not for anything more than keeping Rin safe.

            “There is no other way.”  He brings his hand up to Rin’s elbow, relishing in the warmth of it.

            “Sousuke.”  There’s a shift, a shadow, and then Rin’s _there_ , forehead pressed against his own, breath mingling in the space between them.  Their noses bump, and Sousuke freezes.  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

            “Captain.”  Kiyoko’s voice interrupts then, taking Rin’s heat with it.  The mechanic’s hands leave his shoulders as he turns to her.  “It’s time.”

            Rin looks back, expression as unreadable as always, but Sousuke can’t register anything outside of the static on his skin where Rin had been touching.  If the fake skin hadn’t been covering his metal, he’s positive he would’ve sparked.

            He follows Rin and Kiyoko wordlessly, belatedly realizing Rin had stolen his line.  There’s a gurney in the middle of the room, having appeared sometime while they were in their own world.

            “That’s some kind of fake skin on your arm, right?”  Iwaizumi asks, gesturing.  “You’ll need to take that off and anything else disguising you.”  The cyborg doesn’t know how he knew the fake skin exists, but he doesn’t ask.  He peels off his shirt, feels his shoulder for the subtle line, where Haru had shown him, and pulls that off too.  There’s a gasp from one of the girls; despite them knowing, he’s sure it’s strange to see someone pull off their own skin.

            He does the same with his leg, rolling his pants up instead of taking them off as he sits on the gurney.  Rin steps forward, taking the skin from him.  Their eyes lock, and Sousuke doesn’t take them off him, even as Iwaizumi and Oikawa ease him down into a lying position.

            “We’re going to put you in hibernation mode, so you’ll be able to wake up in an emergency,” Oikawa explains to deaf ears.  Sousuke’s too busy committing the exact shade of red in Rin’s eyes to his memory.  As if he could forget.  “Once we’re inside we’ll send someone to turn you on again and get you out of there.”  Iwaizumi had said the same thing when he’d approached them after the announcement, but Sousuke still can’t listen.  Rin’s lips are chapped, teeth marks visible where he’s worried at them, even from where Sousuke’s lying on the ground.

            “Get Rin back safe,” is his only response to that.  There might be a grunt of frustration from Iwaizumi or even Oikawa, but Sousuke doesn’t care.  They plug into him as he counts Rin’s eyelashes, and he thinks he sees tears appear in the corners of the mechanic’s eyes.

            The last thing he sees before the world turns black is Rin, and he thinks _ah, I should’ve told him I love him_.

            There’s only a 10% chance they’ll be able to get him back after all.

* * *

 

            He’s jolted awake to the sound of alarms and the sight of the same eyes he fell asleep to.  Except…no, the shade of red isn’t quite right.  Sousuke blinks once, and more of the world comes into focus.  The hair is longer too, and the face has a different angle to it.

            “Gou,” he breathes, voice hoarse, and sits up.

            Nothing hurts aside from his brain as his computer overheats for a moment, trying to make sense of the situation his finds himself in.  The room he’s in is unfamiliar, vaguely resembling the mechanic’s shop, and finally his memory is reloaded.

            His feet hit the floor in a second, before the girl’s hands are on his shoulders, trying with weak human strength to keep him down.  “Hang on, I had to do a hard restart.”

            “Rin.”  He croaks it out, voice somehow more hoarse than before.

            She pushes on him, more insistent.  “Seriously, you need to take another minute and calm down or you’re going to overload.”

            “Where am I?”  He doesn’t need to ask, though.  A cursory look around reveals a slew of cyborgs and robots in various states of disassembly lying on tables like him.  A check to himself reveals he’s in one piece still, so he can’t have been here very long.

            Gou raises her eyebrow at him.  “I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”

            She’s smart.  His chip calms down, cooling off as it resumes its normal functions.  He looks her up and down.  No visible injuries, signs of malnutrition, or containment devices.

            “How did you escape?”

            Her laugh is the tinkling of bells, different from her brother.  “You didn’t look me up at all, did you?”  He goes to now, but the server is offline. 

            Or his connection to it is cut. 

            Something on his face gives it away because she laughs again, a glint in her eye not unlike Rin’s.  “I’m a reporter, Sousuke.  I came here willingly.”  Her hands disappear from his shoulders, wordless permission that he can get up.  His shoes are gone, but that’s hardly a deal breaker.  “I was going to crack the whole story wide open, shut them down that way.”

            His ears choose that moment to remind him of the alarms going off in the background.  “Where’s Rin?”  He asks, standing up.

            Her face falls a little.  “So he is the one behind this.  I thought as much.  Sei isn’t here too, is he?”

            He shakes his head, looking around and seeing only one exit.

            “I didn’t think so.  I kept him out of it to keep him safe, but it looks like he’s caused a bit of trouble anyway.”  She’s tapping her lip, thoughtful as she speaks, as if all the alarms going off don’t mean anything.

            “How did you get down here?”

            She steps to the side, picking up a usb drive from the table behind her.  “I’ve been posing as a secretary since I left Sei.  I was looking for this when I saw them bring you in.”  She holds up the usb in question.  “The alarms went off not long after you were brought into this room.”

            He nods, stepping towards the door.  There’s no other exit that he can find, and without access to any servers, he’s at a disadvantage.  His legs feel strange; based on her story, he hasn’t been out long, but regardless his brain is struggling to transfer commands to the rest of his body.  Computers are always slowest when first restarted.

            “You really don’t recognize me, do you?”

            “Of course I do.”  He leans next to the door, poking it open to see people running down the hall.  Getting them out of here in one piece is going to be a challenge.  “We met at Makoto’s diner.”  He tells her absently, mind running through possible scenarios.

            She walks over to him, thrusting the usb at him.  “Here.  After we get out of here, look at this.  It has everything you need to know on it.”

            Sousuke looks back at her, eyebrow raised.  “Don’t you need it for your story?”

            “I have everything I need already.  This one is personal, just for you.”

            He takes it, pocketing it.  Gou is…strange.  She reminds him of Rin in unexpected ways.

            “Ok.  Put this on.  I broke it earlier, but I think this is the only way you’re getting out of here alive.”  She holds a collar out to him, surprising him yet again.

\---

            They hurry down the halls, collar around his neck and leash in her hand.  They aren’t running, but she walks ahead, faster than he expects.  A few men in suits had given them strange looks earlier, but Gou had glared at them and tugged on the leash, pulling Sousuke along behind her.

            Playing secretary, she’d said before, but no one questions her leading a cyborg down the halls.  They encounter fewer and fewer people, finally reaching the stairs.  “Come on,” Gou tells him, voice finally nervous.  She tugs the door open and drops the leash once they’re inside.

            The two of them race down the stairs, the only sounds those of their breath and feet tapping on the stairs as they pass by floor after floor.  They’re almost at the bottom when the door in front of them crashes open.  On instinct, Sousuke grabs Gou’s body and shoves her behind him, shielding her.

            “Freeze y– Sousuke?”  He recognizes the voice, blinking down the last few steps.

            “Kiyoko?”  Gou is the one who speaks up, poking her head out from behind him.  She’s down the steps in two seconds, arms wrapped around the soldier, and the older woman swears.

            “Shit.  Sorry.”  Kiyoko backs away, holding her arm funny.  Sousuke rips the collar off and discards it, taking the last few steps down.

            The plan hadn’t been to travel alone; they were supposed to be in groups.  “Where are the others?”  He asks, ushering her away from the door and down to the bottom.

            “I don’t know.  We got separated.  Someone was spotted, but I’m not sure who.  Shit…slow down.”  She leans against the wall, half a floor above their goal.

            Gou hovers nervously, glancing up and down the stairs on either side of the landing.  They’re sitting ducks here.  “I need you to move.  Can you still use your weapons?”

            Kiyoko nods.  “Radio got busted though.  Took most of the hit.”  She gestures to the blackened plastic left of the device on her shoulder.  She’s holding her arm funny, injured.

            “I need you to get her to safety.  Which group was Rin in?”

            She winces as he squeezes her arm.  Her shoulder is dislocated at a minimum.  “The other one.  We were supposed to find Gou.  A group of girls leaving together would’ve been less suspicious.”

            “I’ll tell them you found her.  Can you get her out safe?  I need a weapon.”  He lists off, ushering her down the stairs.  Gou leads until he hisses.  She understands, waits, and follows behind them.

            “I’m half useless here,” Kiyoko argues, wincing again as he stops her at the bottom of the steps.  He pushes open the door, peeking out.  It’s quiet down here.  He searches for heat signatures, just to be sure.

            “All clear.”  He opens the door all the way, letting the girls get past him.  There’s a slam above him, boots on the steps.

            Sousuke pushes them both in and down the hallway.  He recognizes the layout from the blueprints in the apartment.  They’re close.  The three of them rush down, Kiyoko stumbling.  He grabs her and hoists her back upright, ignoring her swears as he tugs on her useless arm.  “That one!”  He shouts to Gou, pointing to her left.

            She forces it open, pushing inside, as Sousuke hears the door from the stairwell open behind them.  He shoves Kiyoko across him, into the room before following her inside and slamming the door shut just as the gunshots start.  Not friendlies then.

            They’re in a storage room, one off of where he thought they needed to go.  Sousuke lets out a low growl, realizing his mistake.  Wrong blueprint; this would’ve been right before they’d bricked it up.

            “Fuck,” Kiyoko breathes, seemingly realizing the same thing.

            The people outside will be here any moment; they don’t have time for doubt.  The cyborg uses his robotic arm and grabs the lockers, shoving them over so they’re across the door, keeping it shut.

            “Are you trying to lock us in here?”  Gou shouts as Kiyoko lets out another “fuck”.

            He ignores them, grabbing a broken table and piling it on top of the lockers.  “You are a crazy bastard,” Kiyoko breathes out.  She’s pale, and he wonders if maybe she has a broken bone as well.

            He steps towards where she’s standing, pulling up his memory of the blueprints in perfect detail.  “Move.”  Outside the blockaded door he hears gunshots and shouting, but he ignores it.

            She steps aside with a groan, nearly falling onto Gou.  “I will never understand your brother’s taste in men.”

            Sousuke uses his cybernetic arm and punches into the wall with all his strength.

            The room shakes, the shouting on the other side of the door quieting down for a second before coming back again.  But it doesn’t matter; the punch did its job.  There’s a hole enough that he can see through.  He pulls at the bricks with both hands, using the metal one for the difficult parts.  Sousuke knows he has to be fast; it won’t take long for the people outside to figure out what he’s doing.  He pulls out enough for the girls to climb through, cutting open his human hand.

            “Go.”  Rin’s sister, fast on the uptake, nudges Kiyoko towards the opening. 

            She turns to Sousuke, red eyes glimmering in a way that reminds him too much of the mechanic.  “Get him out safe,” is all she says before slipping through the hole to the other side.

            Kiyoko looks at him, light sheen of sweat on her brow.  “Take this.”  She shoves a gun into his stomach, wrapping his human hand around it.  “Thanks.”

            He helps her scramble through the opening.  There’s a scuffle on the other side of the door, and the shooting stops.  They’ve figured it out.  “Go!”  He shouts at them again.  Gou gives him a look over her shoulder but doesn’t need any more prompting.  She ushers Kiyoko out of his line of sight.

            Sousuke steps to the side of the wall, taking calming breaths.  It’s the same as any other kidnapping job he had as a cop.  Calm down, think of where Rin could be.  He looks down at the gun in his hands.  Judging by the weight, the rounds are half gone.  His organic hand is bleeding on the handle and the robotic one has dents on the knuckles, dust on the fingers.

            A thump comes from the other side of the door, reminding him of his immediate problem.  There are no sounds from the room Gou and Kiyoko escaped through.  He steps forward, past the hole towards the blockade, listening.  Heat signatures register only two people in front of the door, others laying near it.

            “Kiyoko?”

            “Shimizu!”

            Friendlies.  He tears down the barricade, pointing the gun in front of himself as he tears open the door.  Two of the girls from the apartment have their own guns pointed at him.  They recognize him after a beat, and all three of them lower their guns.  Sousuke registers five men tied up by their own suits, unconscious against the wall.  Impressive.

            “You’re the cyborg right?”  The paler one asks, clearly rhetorical.

            The other woman sheaths her own gun, peeking past him into the room.  “Damn, what happened here?”

            He doesn’t have time for this.  “Where’s Rin?”

            “Where’s Shimizu?”  The paler one counters.

            The other one sighs, fingers carding through her hair as she looks around, clearly uncomfortable.  “Anya…”  She warns.

            “Well?”  Anya asks, stubborn.

            Sousuke’s not going to get anything from her without answering.  “She’s out, through the hole.”  He points behind himself.  “Gou is with her.”

            Relief is clear on Anya’s face, though the other woman still seems agitated.  “I saw her get hit when we were separated.  I’m going with her.”  Anya nods to Sousuke and passes him, disappearing into the room and out.

            “Where’s Rin?”  He asks the other woman.

            She looks up at him, frowning.  “Our radios went down sometime after Kiyoko was separated from us.”

            He growls.  “If you’re not going to tell me where he is, then I’ll go find him myself.”  He storms past her, grabbing a weapon discarded from the men on the floor.  There are more rounds in this one than the one he has.  He holds onto both, hearing her steps behind him.

            “I’m coming with you,” she tells him without prompting.  “I need to find Mila.”

            The alarms are still blasting around them, though they’ve long since turned to background noise for Sousuke.  Whatever happened since he was brought in here clearly led to hell.  He forcibly shuts down his chip from calculating the odds that Rin’s still alive.  He’s alive.  The other possibility is unthinkable.

            “The information servers are up,” the woman tells him, pulling out her gun and counting the rounds inside, putting it back together while still walking.  She’s a little dirty, but has no visible injuries or limps that he can make out.  “They used to be lower, but they were moved above ground when the Party became legitimate.”

            She ties her hair in a bun over her head as she talks.  He holds out a hand, stopping her as they reach the stairs.  He cracks it open, but hears nothing and sees less.  Sousuke motions for her to follow as he enters, closing the door behind them.

            “What do you mean above ground?”  He asks, ascending.

            “The Gang was literally underground.  Oikawa thinks that’s still where they hold their demonstrations, but the servers themselves were all moved up.  Top floor or just under; close to where Ushijima’s office is.”

            He pauses.  “How many stories is this?”

            “Enough.”  Her jaw is set; she’s not backing down.  Taking an elevator is nearly out of the question, but a hundred floors is too much even for him.

            He checks the heat readings before pushing open the door to the second floor.  “What are you doing?”  She hisses.  “This isn’t the top floor.”

            “We’re taking an elevator.”

            “Are you deaf?  The alarms are going off.  That means they’re out of order.”

            Sousuke marches on, ignoring her.

            “Hello?  I know you were dead to the world for a bit, but this is a little much.”

            He gets to the elevator entrance and pulls it open, bending the metal.  “You have a plug to wake me up, right?  You can plug me in.”

            Understanding dawns on her face when he looks back at her.  She digs into her vest, pulling out a long chord and hands it to him.  He plugs one end in the port behind his right ear.  He reaches around on the inside wall of the elevator shaft and finds the port there, plugging in and closing his eyes.  Numbers fly by too fast for his organic brain to register, so his chip takes over automatically.

            He hears the grinding of gears, and reaches in, unplugging the chord.  “There’s no one inside, I checked before I turned the cameras off.”

            “Not bad.”  They step back as it approaches, empty as promised.

            She takes control, clicking the second to the top floor when they get on.  Sousuke gives her a questioning look, to which she responds with a shrug.  “We’ll get out and get to the top floor first.  If our friends are below us, they’ll have a handy escape pod.”  She’s smart, with a glint in her eye that reminds him of Gou and by extension, Rin.  He hardens his resolve as the elevator raises.  He’s going to find Rin, and he’s going to get the mechanic out alive and in one piece.

            The elevator slows as it reaches its destination, and the woman moves.  “We can’t be inside when it arrives.  Just in case.”  He nods, agreeing with the logic, and helps lift her onto his shoulders.  She pulls open the hatch on the top and climbs out, offering her hand down to him.

            He doesn’t use it.

            Sousuke uses the handrail inside as a stepping stone and hoists himself up and out.  They’re still rising, but judging by the numbers on the doors they pass, they’re getting close.  She closes the hatch behind them, and they both stay down as the elevator grinds to a halt.

            Wordlessly, she looks to him and nods, climbing the rope the rest of the way onto the small landing.  He follows behind her, yanking open the door again.  She’s in quick as a flash before he even gets the metal all the way back.  He can’t blame her though; nerves pulsing through him.

            He gets in after her, looking around.  It’s not a long hallway this time, but a large room, covered in purple carpet, doors all around.  Desperation crawls up his throat when he sees nothing but emptiness, not even the sight of the woman from the apartment.

            “Rin?”  He calls out, voice breaking on the word.  Screw being silent, he needs to see Rin.  He needs to know the mechanic is alive.  “Rin?!”

            Sousuke’s running, gaze darting around as he calls the mechanic’s name over and over again.  There’s a slam and a buzz, light’s flickering, and a door in front of him opens.

            His eyes lock with red ones, just the right shade.  There’s dried blood on the mechanic’s cheek, but before the cyborg can check for an injury there’s another slam of a door opening and his body is being ripped in half from the inside.  He screams, pure agony, eyes locking with Rin’s again.  The mechanic’s mouth is open, he’s shouting something, but Sousuke can’t hear him over the sound of his world tearing apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering: I may hint at what happened, but I have no intention of writing it. If anyone is interested in writing their take on how the girls and guys got in, who was spotted, how Kiyoko got hit (and by what), etc you are more than welcome to. I don't expect it, but I often get curious when reading fics if the author is open for interpretations or spin offs, so I wanted to let my readers know that I am.
> 
> Why didn't I use the Haikyuu females introduced in season 2? Because. I didn't really get a good feel for their characters, and to be honest I fell in love with the yoi ladies and had to throw them in somewhere. I've always planned for this overall event to happen, but the details were never hashed out. Having a larger cast made that easier on me. But where are the boys, you ask? Guess you'll have to wait and see~  
> ;)
> 
> List of Yuri On Ice characters in order of appearance:  
> Mila Babicheva (previous chapter)  
> Anya  
> Sara Crispino - not introduced by name


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